Hunter of Light
by Rhydeble
Summary: Danny is dating Kayden, Colin adopted Lisa, Laserdream is in love with Taylor, Grue has two arch-enemies and a sister-complex, Lisa is contractually obliged to seduce Panacea, Dragon wants to be Lisa's real mom, Annette "Lustrum" Hebert just wants her daughter back, Rune changed her Nazi-subtype, and Trainwreck turned himself into a helicopter. [Completed]
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**  
Late December, 2010

"Emma, I can't, seriously. They'll figure it out in no-time and then it's off to juvie for me," Sophia said.

"Really Soph? You're chickening out? Weren't you the one that told me to be strong and not to back off? It's just Taylor, she's too pathetic to actually tell anyone." Emma replied

Sophia sighed. She'd tried explaining it to Emma, but the redhead just didn't understand. Sure, Sophia was a parahuman, meaning there was very little normal people could do against her. The problem was that Armsmaster and Nostradame were also parahumans, and would most definitely figure out what she'd done almost immediately, somehow.

"I… I can't Emma, you'll have to figure out some other way to do this bullshit because I'm not putting my ass on the line just because you want to prove yourself. The bitch doesn't even fight back, why are you still trying?"

"Fine, alright, I get it. The wards are making you into a pussy. Woop-die-doo." Emma replied.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have the fucking sword of Damocles hanging over you." Sophia said.

 **Chapter 1**  
*** Locker Girl ***

Metal surrounded me, and I could barely see. Just a tiny stripe of light came through the top of the locker door. It wasn't enough to help me find some way out of this hell, only to show me just how disgusting the inside of this locker was.

The slick whet slime, the bugs, it was horrible, and I could barely breathe. This time, the trio had gone even further than usual. I could still hear Emma's laughter, Madison's cheers, all the useless onlookers, doing nothing. The bruises I'd gotten from the jocks that had pushed me in hurt, but not as much as the betrayal. I was truly at my lowest point here.

*** She who sleeps in classrooms ***

Gladly droned on and on. CUI this, fall of communism that, trade patterns this, Leviathan that. It was boring, more boring than most of his speeches.

Worst part was how much Emma and Madison kept giggling, being oh so fucking happy with their little ploy. No, scratch that, the worst part was that she wasn't even involved, but Nostradame would probably still go tattling to Armsmaster for some fucking reason, trying to convince him it was my fault anyway.

About an hour now. That was how long Taylor had been stuck in her locker. Although someone had probably let her out already.

Whatever, it wasn't her problem, and she had nothing to do with it.

Suddenly, she stood outside her body, floating between endless stars. Two great shapes of crystal folded in and out of each other, slowly losing parts of itself. She felt herself get launched away, towards a pale blue-green thing. She landed, bonded, and met one of her sisters.

[Query?] her sister asked.

[Information] she obliged.

"Miss Hess, I know this subject isn't very interesting, but please try not to fall asleep!" Gladly droned.

Sophia looked up from her desk. Strange, she didn't remember falling asleep. What had that thing been with the crystal shapes, with her sister? She couldn't quite remember.

*** She who is falsely accused ***

"Seriously Sophia, you had to know we'd find out." Nostradame said with that smug little smile of her fucking face.

"The fuck is it now Lisa?" she replied.

"Seriously? You don't even know do you? Or is it just that you do know, but it could be one of multiple different things we figured out," Lisa said.

Sophia wanted to punch her, the little twat. Always thinking she was better than everyone else, and running to daddy when it turned out she wasn't.

"Oooh, interesting. Seriously, if you don't want me to know how guilty you are, maybe don't do anything wrong?" Lisa continued.

"I didn't do anything and you know it you fucking liar!" Sophia shouted.

Lisa started laughing, "Oh my, and you actually believe that don't you? Seriously, even Piggy is furious this time."

"I didn't even fucking do anything!" Sophia yelled back. "I literally didn't!"

"Yeah, whatever, anyway, Piggy wants to talk to you, or rather, yell at you." Lisa replied. "And do try not to piss her off too much she's bound to have a heart-attack one of these days."

Sophia walked away, steeling herself for whatever had pissed off Piggy this time. It couldn't have been yesterday's thing with Taylor, right? She'd kept herself out of it, literally not doing anything. Still, knowing Piggy, she'd find some way to twist that into things being her fault anyway, even if every single other person in school did the exact same fucking thing.

As she entered the tinker-tech elevator, she punched in the number of Piggy's floor, the button itself automatically detecting her fingerprint. There was some talk of installing an eye-scanner instead, but Nostradame had argued that that would overly compromise people with unwieldy masks, so this had been the compromise. Sophia grabbed her mask, and put it on. There was no reason to show her face to Piggy, no reason to her what she thought of her.

How had she figured it out? Had someone at the school tattled? Had Taylor actually gone to the police for once? Or was it just Nostradame and her fucking mind-reading or whatever the fuck her power was?

Sophia thought back to the day before. First, at the start of the day, Emma had thrown Taylor into the locker. Then, when they walked past on their way out after Gladly's class, she wasn't in there anymore, having somehow managed to kick her way out or something. No-one had seen her, so she'd probably chickened off back home.

But if she'd gone back home early yesterday, and then, presumably, reported what had happened, then why wouldn't Piggy been angry yesterday instead? It didn't make any fucking sense. Not to mention the fact that she hadn't actually done anything, but they just presumed she was guilty anyway.

Her thoughts were broken up by the little ding of the elevator as it reached her destination. She walked out, and made her way to Piggot's office, past all the useless little drones in their useless little suits. She saw that the door to the office was already open, and she made her way inside, where Armsy and Piggy were waiting for her.

"Shadow Stalker, how about you take a seat?" Piggot said, motioning towards the shitty plastic chair she had there for guests.

Sophia changed into her breaker state, walking through the chair before changing back and sitting down, saving herself a precious second or so of bullshit. Armsmaster just looked at her angry, presumable. She couldn't actually see his eyes through his visor. The man actually had his Halberd with him. Which didn't mean anything, because he always had it with him. Still, it looked menacing.

"Shadow Stalker, I'll let you know, once again, that we have been very lenient with you. All you needed to do was keep yourself to two very simple rules. Do you remember what those rules are?"

"Can we just skip to the part where you tell me what I did wrong this time?" Sophia asked flippantly.

"Just two rules Shadow Stalker, just two of them. First of all, no going out in costume without either a fellow ward or a member of the protectorate accompanying you. Secondly, you stick to your tranquilizer bolts unless there is no other option." Piggot said.

Sophia thought for a second, trying to remember when she hadn't kept to those rules. They were, of course, far from the only rules she had to obey if she didn't want to go to fucking juvie, but Piggot liked ignoring stuff like that. Nuance kept her from monologue-ing properly, and she was basically a supervillain

When Sophia didn't reply, Piggot kept yelling. "So please tell me why I got a report that, just last night, you dropped down from the sky, broke someone's bones in seven different places, and then ran off without calling it in? Used to be you at least used a burner to call an ambulance, so you obviously knew you weren't supposed to do what you did. So what, did you think I wouldn't figure it out if you just ran off without telling anyone who you were? There's only one cape in town that can turn into shadowy gas and that's you!"

Flustered, Sophia spoke up. "Wait, what did I do last night?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**  
*** Making friends at school ***

Strangely enough, after she'd insisted that she hadn't actually done anything of the sort, Armsmaster had suddenly taken her side. Then, there'd been a long discussion where they ignored her, involving Stranger protocols, some guy calling himself Regent, possible Endbringer cult activity and hallucinogenic drugs, before Armsmaster suddenly started asking her if she remembered falling unconscious in the last few days.

When she'd replied with a solid "Maybe, class was really boring" she'd gotten an angry remark about doing her best in school, and had been shuffled out of the room, after which she'd walked into Lisa on her way to the elevator.

The real surprise however, came the day after, during Gladly's class, when a very familiar, and very annoying, face suddenly showed up.

"So, before we start todays lesson, I have a short announcement. A new student will be joining us," Gladly droned, pointing towards Lisa, who was standing there with a big fucking smile on her face. "Her name is Lisa Wallis, she'll be here for a while, yes I know that's interesting, no we won't be cancelling class so you can talk about her," he continued.

Lisa smiled, and scanned the class, her bullshit power probably scanning through everything anyone in class was thinking. Eventually, she was done scanning the students, and when Gladly told her to take a seat, she sat down in one of the empty chairs.

Right next to Taylor fucking Hebert.

If Sophia was right about why Lisa suddenly stopped resisting the youth guard and went to school, then that was very fucking problematic.

That meant Hebert was of interest. Which meant Hebert was probably a fucking parahuman. Which meant that the PRT would try to recruit Hebert. Which meant they'd talk to Hebert.

This meant that, Piggot being the bitch she was, Sophia would probably be punished for shit she did before joining the wards. Because again, Piggy was a bitch.

The rest of the class went by without problem. Gladly, trying to be nice or something, didn't ask the new student anything, which meant that Sophia didn't have to listen to Lisa's bullshit.

Once class ended, Emma and Madison came up to her.

"So, seems the new girls talking to Hebert, how about we teach her how shit works at Winslow?" Emma said.

"Look Ems, we don't need to go hard on her, she probably just doesn't know. We can just speak to her, tell her about Hebert, and she'll probably figure it out from there," Madison replied.

Madison was a weird case. Sure, she'd joined in on all their bullshit, even helped Emma with the locker prank, but she did that to secure her position as a top dog. She was selfish, not sadistic. Adding a new target to Emma's list wasn't one of her priorities.

"Look Emma, just trust me on this. Don't" Sophia said, warning what was probably her only friend.

Bullying Lisa of all people, now that would be a bad idea.

*** Taking out the trash. ***

"So when are you telling your parents you have bulimia?" Lisa asked the redhead.

"Listen new girl, I can cut you some slack, but in a school like this, you should really watch what kind of people you hang out with." Emma replied, slightly flustered.

"Hey now, it's nothing to be ashamed off. Lots of people have problems. For example, Madison here has been starving herself for months now and still can't get a boyfriend. By the way Maddy, it's not that you're fat, it's the eyebrows." Lisa replied.

The look on Madison's face was amazing. It went from confused, to angry, to self-conscious, to ashamed, all within seconds of each other.

"Look you bitch, you can't just come in here and assume you're the top dog. You're nothing, you're less than nothing." Emma replied.

"And you are?" Lisa asked.

"I'm smarter than you, I'm prettier than you, I have more connections than you, I'm better than you. So yes, I'm the top dog here." Emma replied, edging closer to Lisa, trying to be intimidating.

"Oh really? Is that what you told them, back when it happened?" Lisa replied.

"I… what…" Emma stammered.

"Hey Taylor, can you show me the cafeteria? I'm getting kind of hungry." Lisa suddenly asked me, completely ignoring Emma's reaction.

I hadn't eaten lunch there for a while, but whatever. Things were looking up for once. I'd somehow gotten powers, dad was happily dating his new girlfriend, I'd taken down a dangerous criminal, I'd actually made a friend at school, and Emma looked like she was blue-screening. Things couldn't possibly get any better.

"Sure, it's this way" I replied, leaving Emma's little clique behind us. "So… what do you do for fun Lisa?"

*** Danny's new nightlight. ***

Kayden smiled as Danny put his arm around her, slowly moving her in tune with the music. None of them could dance, and she knew they were probably doing a very bad job at it, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that she'd found someone else. Someone who didn't try to manipulate her, who didn't just want her for her powers, that wasn't a Nazi.

He smiled back at her, happiness finally filling a long-depressed face. It was strange, Danny Hebert was quite a bit older than her, but they were still somehow at the same point in their life. Sure, Danny's daughter was fifteen, not one, but she had Theo to take care of, and he was of a similar age. Also, Danny's wife had died instead of being the lord of the Nazi's, but the end result was the same, they were both single.

Okay, so maybe they didn't have all that much in common, at least as long as it didn't suddenly turned out that Danny was also a cape, but Kayden liked being romantic, which meant looking for connections. Her relationship with Danny felt right, and that's what counted.

"What are you thinking about?" Danny asked her.

"I'm thinking about how amazing you are," Kayden replied.

"You always say that," Danny replied, slightly flustered.

"Because it's always true," she said.

Danny laughed, and they stopped dancing all of a sudden, angering their instructor and the other students.

Whatever, life was good, and nothing could stop that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**  
*** Mom won't let me tinker ***

"Coffee, _dad_?" Nostradame said as she walked into the lab, emphasizing the dad part for effect.

"Later, later, I'm working on some rather delicate components now" the man replied, his face hidden inside of the miniature clean-room.

"Aren't you supposed to ask me how my day at school was?" Lisa replied.

"Yeah yeah, whatever" he replied, still stuck in his tinkering.

Lisa sat down on one of the workbenches, making sure she ruined the careful arrangement of tools without actually touching anything dangerous. That would probably get him out of his fugue state. If not, there was always the nuclear option.

Not hearing a reaction, she moved her ass a bit, and accidentally dropped a stack of blueprints on the floor.

"Jokes on you, those were decoy blueprints" was the only reply that came from Armsmasters direction.

She activated her power, something she usually didn't need to do to manipulate the tinker.

 _Not decoy blueprints, he's bluffing. Hasn't eaten breakfast, hasn't slept, hasn't showered, has found the time to honour his title as armmaster._

Quickly, she turned her power off. TMI was TMI. Still, she could probably leverage that in some way. Problem was, that involved the nuclear option, which she didn't exactly want to invoke. Mutually Assured Destruction was a thing, and even she couldn't sneak things past an AI of that level.

"Well, if these are only decoys, you probably wouldn't mind if I ate all these donuts here, would you?" she said. Sure, they were absolutely filled to the brim with calories, but the PRT wouldn't allow her to win a skin-tight costume anyway, so why would she give a shit about her figure?

Within five seconds, Armsmaster had dislodged himself from his specialized workbench, put the project on pause, and removed the box of sugary sweetness from her hands. His other hand grabbing her by the arm, he led the two of them out of the lab, into his office.

"So, Lisa, how was school?" he asked tersely, desperately wanting to return to his tinkering.

"Oh, you know, pretty good. I made a new friend, annoyed some teachers, answered some questions in class, you know, normal school stuff."

"And your mission?"

"Ohhh that? Easy-peasy, pretty sure I found our perp. Bullied girl with low self-esteem, recently found something to live for, couldn't be clearer if she told me."

"Did she?"

"Tell me? No. I got her name though. It's Hebert, Taylor Hebert. Tall for a girl her age, long brown curly hair, geeky glasses, really shy. Probably felt powerful for the first time in years and took it out on that druggy."

"And Stalker?"

"Annoyed, afraid, confused. Lots of stuff. Mostly, I think she's afraid that I'll find out about something she did, although I have no idea what that would be."

"I meant regarding this Hebert girl," Colin clarified

"Not sure, not enough of a read and I wasn't focusing on her. She doesn't like the girl, but almost no-one there does. She wasn't part of the squad that tried to attack her, although she did talk to them beforehand. By the way, one of the girls attacking Hebert was the daughter of that lawyer that defended Stalker in her case."

"Would explain some things." Colin replied.

Lisa activated her power, trying to figure out what that could explain. Sure, she could ask, but that would mean showing him she didn't know already.

 _Lawyer dad, good friends. Lawyer knew about secret identity. Friend knows about secret identity. Actually friends with Sophia, Very close relationship with Sophia. Very close friend of Sophia shows disturbing behaviour at school._

 _Sophia in therapy for abrasive behaviour. Therapy not working. Possible outside influence working against therapy. Emma is outside influence. Has been influencing Sophia for a while now._

 _Sophia biased towards extremist world-view, Emma influences and reinforces that worldview. Removing Sophia from Emma will improve her behaviour and unit cohesion in the wards. Armsmaster is going to ask you to destroy friendship between Emma and Sophia for Sophia's own good. Annoying Emma will, at the same time, improve trust from Taylor. End-result will be hilarious._

"Fine, I'll do it." Lisa replied before her adoptive father could even begin stating his plan.

"Just to make sure we're both on the same page, do what exactly?" Armsmaster asked

"Slowly destroy the relationship between Emma and Sophia, thereby at the same time improving unit cohesion, Sophia's behaviour, and my bond with Taylor," she replied.

"Yes, that was exactly what I was about to propose," Armsmaster said.

 _Bluffing_ her power supplied. She really should've gone with captain obvious for a cape name.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**  
*** I am the night, also batman***

I looked down over the edge, observing the city below. Far, far in the distance, I saw tiny little cars with tiny little headlights driving under tiny little streetlights. They looked like toys from up here,

I looked down at myself, inspecting what was supposed to go through for a costume. I was wearing a hoody, inside out so that no-one would recognize it, baggy sweatpants that would hopefully obscure the shape of my legs, and I was using one of Kayden's shawls wrapped around my head as makeshift balaclava to keep my face hidden. This time, I'd actually be able to talk to the people I'd saved.

I walked back to the middle of the roof of Kayden's apartment building. This late at night, it was completely empty, only a small green lamp showing the location of the exit. Slowly, I stopped holding on so tightly to my reservoir of power, and my body started changing.

At first, it was subtle, my body becoming darker, slightly less solid. Then, I started feeling my weight go down drastically, and my vision started changing. I got, for lack of a better word, some sort of night-vision, the shadows making it perfectly clear what was in them. It was light sources themselves that were hard to see, forming a void of light in my vision.

Halfway through the transformation, I spotted something, tucked away in a corner between two flowerboxes. I moved closer, trying to keep myself in the in-between state I was currently in.

On closer inspection, it turned out to be a bathrobe. One that, if I remembered correctly, was very similar to Kayden's.

Had she gone stargazing, and forgotten it here? Maybe, whatever, didn't matter. It was time for Light-Huntress to keep the streets of Brockton Bay safe.

I looked out towards the docks, out in the distance, and started running, using the power in my lightwell to strengthen my legs. As I jumped of the roof, the reservoir was almost completely empty, and my body was made out of a few wisps of darkness, floating in the air.

My forward momentum meant I kept going forwards, floating above the lights of the city. Slowly but surely, I felt them nourish me, just like the starts in the sky did.

To counteract the power collection, I send out an equally small stream of power downwards, spread out and diffuse so it wouldn't hurt anyone. At this distance it probably wouldn't even hit them. All it did was keep me fully in my shadow state, and push me slightly upwards, keeping me in the air for longer.

My vision kept to the shadows, the alleys, rooftops and abandoned buildings of Brockton Bay where I could see with great clarity.

Druggy. Druggy. Prostitute. Another prostitute. Druggy again. Crazy homeless person who is maybe on drugs. Couple of rich people slumming it. Bunch or parahuman mercenaries. Druggy. Gang-member incorrectly spray-painting Swastikas. Prostitute.

Wait, bunch of parahuman mercenaries?

I looked back at the group I'd glanced over after figuring out they weren't doing anything illegal at that moment. One of them, I recognized from the internet as Faultline, It was hard to say from up here, but she seemed to be wearing her welding mask thingy, and had her hair up in a ponytail. Which was stupid, because someone could just pull it in a fight.

With her were a trio of people in costumes that I didn't recognize, as well as her trio of monster capes. Everyone in Brockton Bay knew about Gregor the Snail, Newter and Garotte.

Still, it didn't look like they were actually doing anything right now, and attacking them while they were all together was probably a bad idea, so I searched on, looking back in their direction to keep an eye on them every now and then.

Eventually, I spotted a cloud of darkness even darker than the rest of the city, drowning out the light from the lamps all around it, obscuring most everything from sight. Through the black mist, I saw someone in motorcycle gear breaking open a store window, and start shoving stuff into his bag.

A robbery then, finally, a crime I could put a stop to!

I stopped sending out my power, and absorbed the light from below. Slowly but surely, I started falling down, using short blasts of light to steer myself towards my target. I had it all planned out. I'd drop down behind him in the street, firing my light-blasts at him just before hitting the ground, meaning I'd fall down safely, as a gaseous shadow. Then, I would be able to walk up to his now unconscious body, arrest him, call the cops, and walk away a superhero that put away a supervillain on her second outing.

*** Eaten by a Grue ***

Brian through the darkness, observing the rest of the small store, trying to figure out what to steal. He wasn't really here to steal anything. The store on the other side of the street had just hired him for some corporate sabotage, but he had to make it look like a real robbery.

Problem was, all this store had was women's clothing, and he had a reputation to think about. What would people say if the dangerous supervillain Grue was known to steal fancy dresses? Who would hire him as parahuman muscle if they thought he liked to wear drag?

Maybe he could pretend it was all for his girlfriend? He didn't actually have one, but no-one else knew that, so it probably wouldn't be a problem. Having decided on that course of action, he went through the clothing racks, putting only the skimpiest of dresses into his loot bag. Hopefully, that would have the desired effect.

Suddenly, in the corner of his vision, he saw a very bright light appear. He turned around, looking at it, but it disappeared almost instantly, having been absorbed by his darkness. Half a second later, he heard a dull thud behind him. Looking at the source of the sound, he saw someone lying on the ground, spasming in pain while wearing a really bad costume. The only way he knew it was supposed to be a costume was that she was wearing what was meant to be a balaclava.

He finished loading up his bag with thousand-dollar dresses, and stepped outside to take a closer look at the fallen cape. He dismissed his darkness, and she started breathing normally for just a second, before her body reverted to some sort of shadow-state that made him think of Shadow Stalker. It wasn't quite the same effect, this girl's transformation was more gradual, but the resemblance was there.

He walked out of his clouds of darkness, standing closer to the girl. Somehow, she could see him, even though they were covered by a cloud of darkness. Some sort of nightvision? Dismissing that line of thought for now, he spoke up.

"Look girl, you failed miserably, while I don't want to get a reputation for beating up teenage girls. How about we both pretend this didn't happen?"

The girl, partly made out of shadows, stood up slowly, obviously still in pain from whatever his powers had done to her. Then, she held one hand in front of her like some sort of blaster.

"Stop… right… there... you… criminal scum!" she said, the effect being largely lost because she was taking pained breaths in between each word.

"Yeah, whatever," Grue replied, sending out his darkness in full force. A tiny bolt of light managed to escape from the girl's hand, but it stopped outright when it hit Grue's darkness. After shooting the bolt, the girl almost immediately turned into even more of a shadow, before crying out in pain and reverting to human-form when his waves of darkness hit her.

Brian thought about himself how weird his night had been, and what to do with the dresses. They looked like the stuff Aisha would want to wear, which meant he had to do his very best to keep them away from her. Maybe he could sell them on the black-market fashion-circuit? Was there even such a thing? There probably was, women could be very intense about clothes 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

*** Great teacher Chubster ***

Mr. Quinlan looked out over the assembled students, idly wondering how many of them were secretly, or not so secretly, gang members.

Winslow was a shithole, focussed on attracting the worst students in the city. Sometimes, Quinlan wondered if it was a government experiment to increase the amount of trigger events. Then, he quickly remembered that what was really happening, was that Blackwell was an incompetent idiot.

That meant that it was all up to him, the mighty Chubster, to keep the school safe.

Sure, there were rumours that Shadow Stalker went here, but you couldn't really demand that a student kept the school safe, a ward like her was probably far more focused on doing well on her tests. He'd worked for the Protectorate once, and knew that keeping up good grades was necessary for a ward.

His students were all dutifully sitting in their chairs, getting ready for class. Except for Taylor, who had, once again, managed to spill juice on her seat. The girl was such a klutz…

He also spotted the new student, Lisa, sitting next to her. Poor girl, making friends was hard enough as a teenager, and now she'd somehow gotten caught up with the clumsiest girl in school.

He knew that the other teachers didn't have it as easy as him. Sure, some of the kids acted up every now and then, but the real troublemakers, the gang members, kept silent in his class.

He still remembered the day that had started happening, almost a year ago now. He'd interrupted a drug deal just outside the school, and Rune, of the E88, appeared out of nowhere to stop him

She failed, and he'd managed to take her down, only for her destroyed hood to show the cobalt-blue hair of one of his students.

He'd given the girl detention for violent behaviour, and made it clear that that kind of behaviour would not be tolerated in his classroom. The girl, Zoe, had passed on the message to her fellow gang members, and the ABB had gotten the hint after seeing the way the Nazi kids suddenly behaved.

"So, students. It's time for mathematics." He said. "Now, I believe we were on the chapter concerning derivation. Can anyone tell me what a derivation is?"

Standing there, he desperately hoped one the students could tell him. While the speculation of some of some of the students that he had early-onset dementia was wrong, his power did have some negative effects on the more mundane side of his memory.

As always however, no hands went up, and the class kept silent. Until the new girl, Lisa, suddenly spoke up.

"Mister Quinlan, I don't think it's very nice of you to ignore Emma like that when she holds up her hand," the girl said.

He looked back at Emma, who looked shocked, probably from him ignoring her hand.

He really needed to get his brain checked out, maybe it really was early-onset dementia if he just forgot about Emma like that.

"Very well, Emma, please explain the rest of the class." He said.

The redheaded girl looked flustered. She probably hated getting all that attention after being brave enough to hold up her hand. Emma was the shy one right? He was quite sure that that had been Emma.

"Ehm, well, as we all know, derivation is, uhm, when…"

Emma's stammering explanation was cut off by the sound of something very large crashing into something that was also very large, coming from outside.

"You know what Emma? You look like you know what you're talking about, do you think you can take over while I go to the bathroom real quick?" he asked, quickly leaving the class before anyone could react. From there, he rushed towards the location where he'd stashed his costume. Whatever was happening right now, it was time for the Chubster to come out and save the day.

***Twin Shadows***

As mister Quinlan left the room, running from whatever was happening like a coward, the class started descending into chaos. Almost everyone ran for the door, while a few confused students kept sitting in their seat.

This was it, if I wanted to be a hero, I'd have to act. To leave the building and stop whatever was threatening the student.

I looked around, spotting a half-open window. If I managed to change to my shadow state, I could probably fit through and go outside. I'd have to constantly spend a lot of power to make sure I didn't go back to my normal form, but it just might work.

The problem was, that Zoe was standing right outside the window, trying to see what was happening outside.

I walked towards her, trying to figure out some way to distract her, when I suddenly noticed that Lisa had decide to follow me instead of leaving class the normal way.

Then, in a stroke of incredible luck, Lisa tripped, falling on top of Zoe, making both of them unable to properly see what was happening. I strengthened myself, expending a ridiculous amount of power, trying to change myself into my gas-state, and floated through the gaps when no-one was looking. Halfway through, I felt the glass shattering as the direct sunlight was too much for me to fully transform. I could stay in a semi-gaseous state though, which meant that no-one would be able to identify me.

Hopefully, whatever super-villain was responsible for the crashing noises, this would go better than my fight against that dastardly Grue.

I ran towards the source of the sounds, eventually finding it.

It was Glory Girl, crashing herself into a ginormous tank, probably the work of Squealer, of the Merchants.

Hiding my shadowy form behind a dumpster that was lying in the middle of the road, I dipped into my sunwell, and fired. This time, during the day, it wasn't a bolt of light flying outwards, but more of a beam that looked like it was spiralling around some invisible center.

As the beam launched itself into the hull of Squealers tank, I saw Glory Girl turning towards me, giving me a thumbs up.

I'd just gotten a thumbs up from Glory Girl herself… this was amazing.

Almost as amazing as the next person joining the fight. From the direction of the school, a man almost as fat as mister Quinlan came hobbling forwards, wearing horrifically skin-tight spandex that covered his entire body in a strange red and blue pattern, with Shoulder guards and Leg-guards made out of plastic or steel.

"Do not fear, Chubster is here!" the large man yelled out as he ran towards Squealer's tank.

As I was about to slam a shadowy palm into my shadowy face, the Main turret on Squealer's tank turned, and fired a large shot towards Chubster. But, instead of being blown into tiny red and white pieces, he somehow managed to stop the projectile, catching it in his hands.

The guy was sturdy, you had to give him that.

Before I could react, another combatant joined the fight. Shadow Stalker had appeared to shoot crossbow bolts at the thick armour of the tank.

Didn't the wards go to Arcadia? Also, why was her shadow-state so recognizeable?


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

*** Like a Piglet ***

Squealer had a problem. Or rather, she had several problems.

First of all, there was the fact that Gloryhole had, for some reason, decided to interrupt her test-ride by throwing dumpsters at it.

Which had really messed up her IFF systems. After all, dumpsters had been one of the main components of her tank.

Then, to add to that problem, Shadow Stalker had appeared, and instead of firing crossbow bolts, she'd fired gigantic light blasts, probably from some kind of Kid Win made contraption.

Seconds after that, the fattest, most ridiculous vigilante of Brockton Bay came out, in the form of Chubster. She'd shot him, and he'd somehow caught the bullet. Probably because Glory Girl's dumpsters had damaged the internal batteries.

Chubster's arrival then, had been followed up by the appearance of Shadow Stalker, who was shooting at her beautiful baby from the school roof.

A roof that, about half a minute after Shadow Stalker's second arrival, suddenly lunged up, and started flying towards her tank.

The auto-turrets on her tank detected this projectile, and tried to shoot it out of the sky, but that turned out to be rather difficult when the projectile was, quite literally, just a big hunk of rock.

In the meantime, most of her sensors had been destroyed by Glory Girl's dumpster throwing, her front wheels had been melted and or blasted away by Shadow Stalker, Chubster was slowly, but surely, approaching from the front, and Shadow Stalker's crossbow bolts had pierced the firing mechanism of the main gun, making that utterly useless as well.

Realizing something, Squealer looked back at the bag of pills she'd been sampling. That was some amazing shit, seeing how it made her see two different Shadow Stalkers.

Deciding on a course of action, she pulled a lever that forcibly separated her truck into two halves, leaving the now destroyed front half behind. In addition to that, she activated her smoke-cannons, blacking out the skies before she rode away on six wheels that remained of her twenty-eight-wheeler.

If Skiddy got angry for her losing the vehicle, she'd just blame his supplier for giving her shit so strong that the hallucinations actually shot at you.

"Clunk" she suddenly heard, just after she thought she'd gotten away from them by taking away all the light with her black smoke. It worked when Grue did it to her, why wouldn't it work when she did it?

The problem was, of course, that she couldn't exactly see where she was going, which meant steering by GPS. A GPS that hadn't updated itself to take the dumpsters Glory Girl had thrown at her into account.

Luckily, every time she crashed into a dumpster, she heard a small yell from outside.

Until she heard the sound of tearing metal right where the hatch was, only to be followed by a lot of black smoke making its way inside.

Those pills had been damn awesome, seeing how she was almost certain that the smoke was moving in some sort of pattern, like something or someone was steering it.

First, it drifted towards her computer set-up, half the monitors she used to keep an eye on her vehicle now having blue-screened. It looked like the shadow was trying to cover them, basking in their glow.

Squealer stepped back, those had been some really good pills, slightly too good…

Suddenly, she hallucinated the black smoke turning into a shadowy shape. She started screaming, loudly. This was most definitely a very, very bad trip.

The figure came closer, and pulled one of its hands back, getting ready to strike her. Luckily, she fell unconscious from the panic before it could hit her.

*** Crimestopper 2, electric boogaloo ***

As I drifted slowly through the night sky, looking for criminal activity, I reflected upon my day.

I'd done it. I'd taken down an actual supervillain, and it felt amazing! Finally, the universe had done something to show me that I wasn't as pathetic as Emma thought I was.

What made my day complete however, was what I spotted next. Grue was at it again. This time however, he wasn't just robbing any old place. The dastardly bastard was actually robbing fugly bob's of all places. He was probably going to drown his sorrows about being a third-rate cross-dressing supervillain in burgers. That sounded like something a degenerate like him would do.

However, after what had happened last time, I couldn't just drop in without a plan. His bullshit shaker power generated darkness which, apparently, other people couldn't see through. However, some weird bullshit thing meant that it also really fucking hurt when it touched me.

So I'd need to use the fact that he couldn't see me, and take him out from range.

Fugly bob's was a small, one-floor building, that looked like it was ready to be broken down the moment it was build, which meant no-one would really miss it. Probably. Whatever, if it meant catching a dangerous supervillain, what was one tiny building?

Just like last time, I stopped pushing downwards, and drifted down, slowly at first, but then faster and faster.

This time however, I landed at range, on a roof within sight of Fugly Bob's. It was late enough for even that store to be closed, so I didn't need to watch out for innocents.

The main entrance of the place was completely blocked off by darkness, which would absorb my blasts, but I could probably still hit the side walls from here.

I jumped down to the street, positioned myself under a streetlamp, and started blasting the shit out of the building's loadbearing walls. After about ten seconds, I ran further, to another side of the building, and started blasting down that side.

Eventually, I heard the creaking and groaning of the building, and it started breaking down on top of Grue.

I checked back at the front entrance to make sure he wouldn't get out that way, just to see that more darkness had come spreading out of the front entrance.

Then, I looked through one of the holes I'd made in the now almost destroyed building, and saw Grue standing there, covered in darkness.

He moved his arm, and suddenly, the darkness flowed forwards, out of the building, through the gap, towards my face.

Knowing what would happen if it hit me, I jumped out of the way, channelling all of my energy into my legs, making me fly upwards as a loose collection of shadows.

From a distance, I saw him run out of the slowly collapsing burning, covered in a cloud of darkness.

I floated after him, trying to keep track of where the darkness was going, but he lost me when he turned a few corners. Sure, I could see through his darkness, but concrete was still a problem, and I couldn't follow too closely.

Shortly after, I heard a motorcycle's engine in the distance.

Smart, he'd probably changed helmets, and was now virtually unrecognizable beyond being "some dude on a bike."

So why was the sound coming closer? If I was that damnable villain Grue, I'd move away from the scene of the crime, but this sound was definitely increasing in intensity.

Suddenly, I fell down about three meters, landing on the ground with a crash that wasn't as painful as I expected it to be. A bright light was shining at me, and I was very happy I was wearing my actual costume.

I looked at the light's source. A headlight, a motorcycle's headlight. The driver had dismounted, and was walking towards me, Halberd in hand.

"Are you a villain?" Armsmaster asked. 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

*** Stop right there, are you criminal scum? ***

"No," I answered. Trying desperately not to look guilty. Was I a criminal? Probably not. Everything I had done her I had done in the name of justice, which meant It was okay.

"Did you blow up Fugly Bob's?" Armsmaster continued.

I waited for a second, looking back at the now ruined building. Maybe I could claim that Grue had suddenly gained explosion powers or something? No, that probably wouldn't work. Claim the existence of a second cape with explosion powers?

"Yes?" I said questioningly.

"Yet you say you aren't not a non-villain?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm not a villain," I replied, trying not to get tripped up by his answers.

He looked sceptical, so I started looking for excuses, when I suddenly remembered that afternoon. "You can tell I'm not a villain because I'm doing the same thing Glory Girl does?"

Armsmaster didn't look very convinced, but continued the conversation anyway.

"So, first of all, thank you for blowing up Fugly Bob's, maybe now Assault will actually fit in his costume again. Secondly, why did you blow up Fugly Bob's?"

I couldn't help but notice that he had his Halberd at the ready, probably preparing to attack if he didn't like my answer.

"I was trying to catch Grue," I replied.

"I'm assuming he was robbing the place then?" Armsmaster asked

"Yeah. Also, I think maybe Grue is a she. Last time we fought, she was robbing a dress store."

Armsmasters armored hand went up and started scratching his chin, metal fingers smoothly caressing his magnificent beard.

"Hmm, interesting, did you happen to spot Circus nearby?"

"Nope," I replied. I was wondering whether or not he would return to the whole _blowing up Fugly Bob's thing_. I was hoping not.

Armsmaster started walking back and forth, pondering over something.

"Well, it's still good to know. I'll inform the rest of the Protectorate. We don't want some PR scandal for using the wrong pronoun when we arrest her," he said. "Know, do you have any idea why she might want to rob Fugly Bob's?"

I thought about it. Why would a degenerate criminal like Grue rob a fast-food place?

"Because he had the munchies?" I replied.

"Hmm, yes, I see, we'll need to make sure she doesn't fall in with the Merchants if she's abusing Marijuana…"

"Well, I'll let you get to it then, see ya!" I said cheerily, trying to oh so very subtly walk away.

*** A regular Holmes ***

So apparently, Grue was now a pot-head transsexual. Armsmaster thought to himself. Well, at least that explained his, or hers, or perhaps maybe xirs, crime spree. Grue probably just needed money to pay for the operation.

He felt very, very happy that Grue was a shaker, and not a changer or a tinker. He still remembered all the sensitivity trainings they'd had to go through when Trainwreck had decided he wanted to be an attack helicopter. Some angry protestors had decided that destroying his rotors to reduce his mobility meant being disrespectful of his chosen gender identity, and it had all ended horribly.

Putting that thought out of his mind, he surveyed the damage to the burger tent. Most of the outer walls had been destroyed, blown apart by small projectiles. Grue's darkness had already disappeared, so he could see the extent of the damages Shadow Stalker's new bff had caused.

He suddenly realized he'd forgotten to ask her (At least it looked like a her, probably, thinking about it she had been kind of flat. But stating that she was a he because she had no breasts was probably even more insensitive. All this shit was getting hard to keep track of.) her name.

Then, he suddenly realized that he'd also forgotten to arrest her for causing unreasonable amounts of collateral damage. Oh well, if this girl (probably) was able to catch Grue on her own, then he wouldn't have to deal with any of this new-fangled gender-bullshit, which served him perfectly well. Also, Battery would be happy that maybe her husband would be able to get in shape again. The Fugly Bob Challenger had taken a toll on his figure.

And, of course, there was the fact that the new girl had not, in fact, been a criminal. His lie detector had taken care of that. It was so incredibly useful! If only PR wouldn't get angry when he asked random people on the streets whether or not they were criminals. Crime-fighting would be so much more efficient. Now he was forced to bring Nostradame with him if he wanted to arrest people without catching them in the act.

Speaking of Lisa, the girl had told him she'd already identified this new cape out of costume. The problem being, of course, that she'd also been able to unmask two other capes. In other words, acting on that information directly would pose a problem. If only they could set up events in such a way that they would be forced to unmask themselves…

Oh well, for now, he could just file the new information on Grue, and then call Brandish to blame her daughter for all the devastation. That would probably take attention away from his own mistake of forgetting to arrest the girl.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

*** The greatest enemy of all ***

I'd defeated the abominable Squealer, fought the dastardly supervillain called Grue twice, and I had finally met a worthy opponent.

The question was, of course, what to do about it.

Most of my well-laid plans had been ruined, completely no-selled by horrible creature I was trying to handle.

She didn't want the bottle, she didn't want to be held, she didn't want her pacifier, and her diaper was completely clean. So why the fuck was Aster crying?

Quickly, I blocked my face from her sightline by placing my hands before it. Then, before she could react, I removed the hands again. For just a second, it seemed like the girl was going to smile, before she continued crying again.

I looked around the almost empty house, making sure no-one was watching the windows, and trying to find something to shoot.

Maybe the couch? It was old, and Kayden kept complaining that it didn't fit the sheng fui of the house. But money was tight, so it probably wasn't that good an idea.

Maybe I could just shoot into the garbage bin? That'd probably work.

I left the crying baby behind for just a second to go and grab the bin from the kitchen. Then, I put my face in front of Aster's again, and fired into the thrash.

The noise was… not as bad as I'd feared, although it smelled like something was burning. But that didn't matter. What mattered, was that it allowed me to turn towards my shadow-state, and then turn on the light to turn normal again.

Advanced, super-powered peekaboo. If that didn't work, I didn't know what would.

And, given Aster's lack of reaction, it wasn't working. What a kid, seriously. Most children would be amazed if they had their own personal parahuman entertainment, but not little Aster. All Aster wanted was her mommy, and nothing else would do.

If only I had some sort of Stranger or Changer power. Or maybe Master. That would've made babysitting a whole lot easier.

I needed the money though. Costume parts were expensive, and after reading about the whole Squealer thing online, I knew I couldn't keep going out in an inside-out hoody with a balaclava.

But that damn baby JUST KEPT CRYING. For absolutely no reason. It was like, like… Why was it crying? It was almost as incomprehensible as Emma's betrayal.

Thinking about Emma, and comprehending things, I suddenly had an amazing idea.

I grabbed the phone, and my notebook, and called the one person who would probably know exactly what was wrong with Aster. After all, Lisa seemed to know just about everything.

The phone went over once, twice, three times, before Lisa answered.

"Lisa Wallis here, Taylor, I'm guessing?" she said.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" I asked.

"Lucky guess! So, why are you calling?"

"Are you any good with babies?"

*** Fucking Tinkers ***

Lisa looked around the laboratory where Armsmaster, Kid Win, and Dragon's avatar were currently huddled around a piece of confiscated Leet technology. Sure, she had to agree that Star Wars was pretty cool, but this much hubbub about a lightsaber?

She returned to her phone call. "Well, I spend a lot of time with a bunch of babies, so probably?"

"What do I do when they're crying and nothing is working?" Taylor asked her.

"Have you tried lightsabers? It seems to be working around here."

"I don't have any lightsabers with me…" Taylor replied.

Lisa thought about it for a second… how to distract a baby when you didn't have any high-tech toys as hand to take all of its attention.

Food? No, Taylor would've tried that already. Holding it? Too easy. What else… what else…

"Have you tried ignoring it?" she asked.

"You think that'll work?" Taylor asked.

"Maybe, I mean, she'll have to stop crying eventually, right? Just make sure it's not hurt or anything first."

"I guess you're right… Just feels bad, you know. Ignoring a baby like that. Makes me feel like a bad babysitter. Anyway, how's your day going?"

"Oh well, you know, lots of things to do. My dad is being really confused about all this new-fangled gender stuff, and everyone wanted to know about the Squealer thing at school yesterday. Did you get a good look at what was happening?" Lisa asked.

"Ehmm, no, not really," Taylor lied. "Anyway, you hear about that new cape?"

"What, baby-stalker? At least that's what I heard people calling her online. It's always a bother when capes don't tell anyone their name." Lisa replied, hinting at what Taylor should be doing next. Funny as it might be to see people try to come up with names for her, she really didn't want to see the girl end up with something like _Shadow Stalker 2, Return of the Stalkers_.

"Anyway" Lisa continued, "You planning on doing anything tonight?"

"Yeah, I think I'm going out once I'm done babysitting. Got stuff to do you know."

 _Like trying to catch Grue again_ , Lisa thought to herself. Taylor and Sophia were more alike than they wanted to admit, what with their dogged need to go after the one person they couldn't take down.

Poor Grue, not only were there two semi-idiotic teenage girls aiming for his life, for some reason Armsmaster had managed to convince everyone that he was transitioning to female, and PR had made sure to use _she_ in every press release.

Someday, she'd have to correct that mistake. But for now, it was way too funny to put a stop to it.

*** A young lady needs to think about her reputation ***

"Let her go" Hookwolf commanded to the horde of Empire mooks standing behind him.

Grue was surprised. Had Hookwolf really just told them to let him go? But why? Was the guy that hired him for today's job secretly a part of the Empire? Was there something else at play here?

He got a tighter hold on his backpack, filled to the brim with cash from the slot machines he'd broken open. He'd need to get out of here, but this thing with Hookwolf not attacking him bothered him. Was it some sort of secret code? A trap?

"What do you mean let me go?" he asked Hookwolf, his voice modulated by the darkness seeping out around him

"What I mean is that, as much as I may disagree with your decision to transition, we do not attack young ladies. We're Nazis, not misogynists."

"I, wait… what…" Grue wasn't exactly sure what to say.

Why the fuck was Hookwolf calling him a young lady? Like this was some sort of Victorian novella…

"So leave right now, and don't go out this late anymore, it's not safe on the streets at night. You never know what kind of ruffians walk around at this hour," Hookwolf said.

Not entirely sure what it meant for his rep, but also very much not wanting to fight Hookwolf, Grue decided to take the opening and leave.

He'd deal with this some other day, preferably after a few beers.

When he was past Hookwolf, the man spoke up again.

"Also, you might want to change costumes or add some padding. If Rune didn't browse PHO so religiously, I wouldn't have known about your, you know, gender thing."

Grue ran away, thinking about how he really shouldn't have robbed that dress store. Aisha hadn't even liked the clothes! Said they were too classy.

As he approached the getaway vehicle, that is, his trusty motorcycle, he heard a thud on a nearby rooftop.

He looked at it, and spotted her. Shadow Stalker, or maybe Shadow Stalker 2, Electric Boogaloo. It was difficult to tell when they were just standing there.

Seconds later, he heard another thud, on a roof on the other side of the road.

The other Shadow Stalker, this time accompanied by Nostradame. Of course… great…

The real Shadow Stalker spoke up: "Hey dude, finally caught you. How about you don't surrender and I beat you up first?"

To that, Nostradame reacted. "Seriously Stalker, not cool, miss-gendering supervillains like that."

"Isn't it dude-gendering?" the other Stalker asked. He looked at her, only to see that she was now wearing a metallic mask, with a flashlight attached to it, showing where she was looking. It would've been a really cool effect, if he hadn't been able to see that the flashlight had been attached using duck-tape.

Just when had his life gone wrong, that he'd ended up in this situation?


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

*** Shadow and shadow against darkness ***

"You know what, I'm sick of this shit. I am NOT a woman!" Grue yelled.

"So what, you're just a regular crossdresser?" The other Shadow Stalker, the fake Shadow Stalker, asked.

"What? NO!" Grue yelled back at her. "Those dresses were for my sister!"

Fucking Lisa chuckled, and replied: "That's… those dresses for your sister? You're not improving your rep."

"I… what… who even told you all this?"

"PHO, my blog, a special app-group used by most every hero or vigilante in B-Bay, you know, stuff gets around." Lisa, or Nostradame, answered.

"Can we just shoot him already?" Sophia asked her fellow ward. For some reason, Piggot had decided that Lisa should be the one deciding when they initiated combat, which meant she couldn't do anything while Lisa was having fun with banter. She just wanted to shoot at Grue for a bit, was that too much to ask for?

"You know Hookwolf is like, two blocks that way right?" Grue said, pointing in the direction he'd come from.

"I know, but, you know, he's actually dangerous, so we'll leave him to someone else." Nostradame answered.

"Right… of course… you're cowards, I should've known." Grue answered.

What? Did she hear that right? Had Grue just called her a coward?

Fuck Piggy's orders, this fucking asshole thought he was better than her? Hell no. Sophia jumped down to the floor, readied her crossbow, and shot at Grue. Grue, in turn, threw up his trademark smokescreen, making it impossible to see if she'd hit or not. Oh well, if she'd hit, they'd find out in about twenty minutes when his sleeping body would be found on the ground.

Then, she noticed the darkness flow forward. Damn, looked like she'd missed. She jumped backwards, making sure the bullshit darkness thing didn't hit her. She couldn't have it interfere with her power.

In the meantime, other Stalker had run off like a coward somewhere, and Nostradame used a grappling hook to make her way down as well.

"I'm going in, you cover me from above," the bitch commanded her while taking out her electro-saber.

It wasn't fair. Collin gave Lisa all the fun toys.

Lisa ran forwards into the mist, the electricity of the blade slightly burning away the darkness around it, using her power to navigate further.

Sophia jumped upwards, trying to predict where Lisa and Grue would be going through the darkness. Probably towards his get-away plan. Too bad she didn't know where that was.

Suddenly, she spotted her double. The other Shadow Stalker, running over the roofs, this time in shadow-form. She was coming towards her, probably wanting to say something.

"What do you want?" she asked her double.

"Why aren't you shooting Grue? You can hit her through the darkness with your crossbow right?" the other Shadow Stalker said.

"I… what, how the fuck would I be able to do that?"

"Point and shoot? You're the crossbow girl here right?" she said.

"Point where? Remember the part where his darkness blocks out everything?"

"Wait… you mean you can't see shit?"

"What do you fucking mean?"

"You mean you can't see through Grue's darkness?"

"Of course I can't! Why the fuck would I be able to look through that?"

"Cause I can?"

"oh…" Sophia replied. That… Yeah, she could understand why the other Shadow Stalker thought she could see through the darkness.

"Gimme that," the girl said, pointing at her crossbow.

"No fucking way, that's my crossbow!" she replied.

"I need it to shoot Grue! I already took out his motorcycle but my projectiles don't go through his darkness!"

"And it's my fucking crossbow! Go get your own crossbow!"

The girl stood still for a second, slowly returning to her normal state. Then, without warning, she shot a bolt of light towards Sophia's torso.

Sophia quickly applied her power, changing into her breaker state, but the lightbolt still caught her right in the shadow. Then, while she was lying on the floor. She saw the other Stalker grab the crossbow and run for it.

"Sorry, gotta take down Grue!" she yelled.

*** And an electrosaber to steer her by ***

Grue's darkness was disorienting and annoying, but Lisa could make her way through. The way the electricity on her saber interacted with the airflow, the rhythm of the road beneath her feet, she managed to find her way forwards. She might not be as fast as Grue, but what with Taylor and Sophia covering the roofs, he couldn't move at maximum speed either.

Eventually, she'd find him, hit him with her blade, and taze him down. Probably. She wasn't actually very good at combat, but hey, PR thought a weapon nicely complemented her outfit and didn't want to be seen sending a thinker on patrol unarmed, so daddy made her this thing. She didn't need to be good, she'd just need to connect to her opponent or whatever he was holding, and the programming would to the rest.

Now if only she'd find Grue somewhere around here… Sophia was so utterly useless sometimes. She'd been stalling, waiting for more back-up to deal with either Grue or Hookwolf, and the girl had let herself be goaded into a fight.

The real problem of course, had nothing to do with Sophia, and everything to do with Grue. Sure, the whole "Make everyone act really politically correct by telling them Grue is transsexual thing" was funny, but it was getting old. Plus, with some liberal interpretation of their latest conversation, she could give him a reputation as a sister-lover instead.

Suddenly, she left the darkness, and saw that she was in an alleyway. Strange, had she misjudged the airflow? Or was Grue trickier than she thought he was?

As it turned out, neither was the case, as Grue suddenly sprinted out of the darkness just besides her, shoving her to the ground while running past her.

Having faceplanted, Lisa tried to see what was happening. Somehow, Shadow Stalker seemed to be shooting straight at Grue, even through his darkness. Except for the part where she seemed to have no idea how to use her crossbow, which led to her missing anyway.

Which meant that this was Taylor instead, who apparently had some sort of dark-vision that could see through Grue's darkness. Useful to know that.

Then, she spotted someone else joining the fight, and yelled.

"Shadow, duck!"

The girl ducked just in time to evade the throwing knife flying towards her legs.

Lisa looked at Grue, who had just been joined by Circus, the flamboyant, bell-covered thief girl.

Who was, according to what her power just told her, an actual cross-dresser herself. Or himself. Weird. really weird. For some reason, she couldn't tell whether he was a guy dressing up as a girl, or a girl dressing up as a guy. To most people, they'd only see the girl in costume, or probably the guy outside of it. Probably. Weird.

"The fuck are you doing here Circus?" Grue asked her.

"What? Us genderqueer individuals should help each other out shouldn't we?" Circus replied.

"I… what… I'm not…" Grue stammered.

Lisa, feeling a bit guilty, decided to come to the rescue. Sort of, actually not at all. She was probably just going to fuck him over more.

"Yeah, partially my bad. Turns out he's not transsexual, just has a sister fetish," she said.

"I don't have a sister fetish!" Grue yelled.

"I know right? We can always spot one of our own." Circus said in agreement.

She saw Grue overthinking his options, before, according to her power, deciding that pressing the issue probably meant losing Circus's support.

"Just... let's take these three down okay?" He said. Before sending a wave of darkness towards Lisa and Taylor.

Lisa readied herself, holding out her blade in front of her, and she saw Taylor jumping upwards, trying to dodge by going over the wave of darkness. The wave of heat from above however, told Lisa that she'd probably been shot out of the air by Circus's pyrokinetics.

If only they'd had more time to wait for reinforcements…


	10. Chapter 10 rewrite

Chapter 10 rewrite

*** Grand Theft Go-kart ***

Kayden was not quite sure what she was seeing. She'd gone out after a nice dinner with Danny, while Theo was taking care of Aster, and had been planning on maybe shooting a few ABB members.

She hadn't gone out to deal with what seemed to be the new, improved version of Shadow Stalker, and Uber, racing through the streets in what seemed to be go-karts. Worse, the new Shadow Stalker seemed to be flinging some sorts of energy bolts at Uber, trying to make him lose control or crash.

In the meantime, they were running through just about every red light in the city, and stopping traffic in a large area around them. That meant it was up to her to stop them. The Protectorate, after all, was busy somewhere else.

She flew down, trying to help the new vigilante. After all, the only possible explanation for this turn of events was that Uber and Leet were performing some sort of go-kart based crime that had been interrupted by New Girl taking down Leet and hijacking his kart to go after Uber.

Nearing them from above, Purity collected her power, and launched it at the street in front of Uber, breaking up the Asphalt and making it impossible for him to continue. Sadly, Uber activated some sort of device that made him jump up into the air, straight over the obstacle.

Half a second later, the new girl did exactly the same, shooting a few more bolts of light at Uber from her crossbow.

Then, Uber turned a corner, and the new girl started yelling at her, her face covered by a mask of shadows, her twin crossbows glistening with bolts of pure light.

"What the fuck Purity?" she asked. "I thought you turned face?"

Wait, what? Why would she be turning into a face? That didn't even make sense.

"I… thank you?" she replied

"Seriously, I need to outrace Uber to be with my Lesbian lover, Grue!" the girl yelled at her.

Wait, what? Grue's lesbian lover? Wasn't Grue dating Narwhal? This girl looked like she was way too young to be in a threesome.

The girl aimed her crossbows, and shot at Kayden, who absorbed the light from her bolts, much the same way she did with sunlight.

"No… I am powerless!" the girl yelled, as Leet suddenly flew through the air on another go-kart, followed by a fourth kart driven by a green dinosaur with a saddle.

Quickly, Purity blasted Leet and the dinosaur out of the sky, and turned to the girl.

"Please, you have to save me, Kaiser is going to kill my father if I don't start dating his daughter!" the girl yelled out.

That made Kayden angry. Max should know damn well that Aster was way too young to be dating anyone. In her anger, she lashed out, shooting the new girl in the mask.

The beam of light shredded through the girl's mask, as well as her hoodie, and Kayden yelled out in shock.

A half-unconscious Taylor was lying on the ground, having been hurt by her flagrant use of her power.

In anger, she turned to the person responsible for all of this. Kaiser, Max. She walked towards him.

"You won't corrupt her too, you hear me!" she yelled, blasting him right in his face.

The alarm clock flew from her nightstand, impacting against the wall with a thud.

"Hey, you all right?" Danny asked her. His arm caressing her.

"Yes, just a nightmare. I'm going to get something to drink, you go back to sleep okay?" she whispered back.

She stood up, navigating the Hebert household. First, she checked Aster, who was still sleeping in her crib, and had luckily ignored her outburst. Then, she went to the bathroom to relieve herself, and have a drink.

Taylor a cape… she couldn't believe her own subconscious. A sweet girl like that didn't deserve that kind of life. She'd had a hard enough time of it in school, what with her bullies. Not to mention Danny's behaviour. She loved the man dearly, but he was clearly not very good at taking care of his daughter.

Still worried by her nightmare, Kayden decided to go check that everything was alright with Taylor. Just a little peek through the door, that would be all.

She walked, silently, towards Taylor's room, and opened the door just a bit. Then, she peeked through the small slit, looking at her bed.

The bed was empty, and hadn't been slept in.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

*** Giga-Drill-Busted ***

Danny had gone back to sleep, so Kayden decided to go down to the living room to wait for Taylor.

This… this was bad. A girl that young shouldn't be staying out so late, and there was really only one explanation for it.

Taylor had a boyfriend, and she wasn't telling anyone about it. That alone was bad news. After all, if it was an upstanding guy, Taylor would admit it. Or at least she would've whispered about it with her, even if she was unwilling to tell her father.

Plus, Taylor didn't have all that many friends at school. She was lonely, and she didn't have a lot of confidence in herself. It would be easy for someone with less than savoury intentions to trick her into a relationship.

Was that it? Was this Max's attempt at getting back at her? Get some young empire thug to start dating Taylor, corrupt her into his twisted ideology?

After three hours, she heard the backdoor opening. Smart, one of the steps of the porch creaked. But Taylor probably hadn't expected her to be prepared for her arrival.

She walked into the kitchen, ready to confront the girl.

When she saw Taylor, she knew that it was worse than she'd expected.

The girl was wearing a ratty hoody, inside-out for some reason. Probably some new street fashion, or was that an ABB thing? She also had something in her hands that she hid behind her back the moment she saw Kayden.

The worst part however, was the black eye, in addition to a few scratches, broken patches on her sweater and pants that looked like they'd been scorched. She favoured her right leg just a bit, and looked rather shocked at being caught.

"I… I can explain," Taylor said.

Kayden walked to her and enveloped her in a hug.

"It's alright Taylor, I don't blame you for this. Don't let anyone blame you for this okay?" she said

"uhm… okay," Taylor replied.

"You know you can always come to me with your problems right? Even the ones you don't really want to talk to your father about."

"Yeah…" Taylor said.

"You… you gotta know Taylor. You can't just… you can't change him, okay? You might think you can, but trust me, you can't. Guys like that never change," she said, imparting her wisdom on the young girl.

"I… How do you know…" Taylor asked.

"Because I've been through it too Taylor, I know what it's like. A guy like that, thinking it will stop, thinking you'll do better next time. But it doesn't work, it never works. The best thing to do is to just leave him, and find someone better. Trust me, you can do much, much better."

"Okay… I… I think I understand," Taylor replied. "Don't tell dad? Please?"

"Okay Taylor, I won't tell Danny, if you promise to leave this guy alone."

"I promise…" Taylor said. She looked, sad, exhausted, but she'd keep her word.

*** Dating Advice? ***

Kayden knew I was a cape…

Kayden knew I was a cape, and she was a cape herself.

Kayden knew I had been trying to take down Grue, and Kayden had adviced me to give up, to just let him go and take on another target. She'd told me I couldn't do better than I'd already done, _thank you very much_ , and that I'd never catch him. That I could do better going after someone else.

I could kind of understand that. Grue was a perfect counter to my powers, as this night's horrible fight had taught me once again. Sure, I'd had help from two of the wards, but she'd had Circus on her side. Or maybe he, it was getting really confusing. And there was something with his sister?

It didn't matter though. If I didn't stop going after Grue, Kayden was going to tell my dad. She couldn't do that! Danny would be horrified that I'd been risking my life. I couldn't… couldn't make him think I was going to leave him. He'd already lost mom, I couldn't do that to him.

But… if Kayden was secretly a cape, which one was she? To be fair, her job as interior designer had always looked like a sham to me, no-one really needed someone else to place their furniture, right?

So… let's see. Kayden couldn't be Shadow Stalker, or Nostradame, or Vista. The wards were just too long, and if she was Shadow Stalker or Nostradame, she wouldn't have been able to get home in time to catch me.

One of the Protectorate then? Or maybe an independent? I knew Battery was probably dating Assault, or maybe he was her brother, or maybe both. The tabloids were never quite clear about that. Maybe Armsmaster? Making her, like Grue, a crossdresser? No, that wouldn't make any sense, so the other male Protectorate members were also out. New Wave wasn't possible either, since they had all unmasked themselves. Unless, of course, the unmasking was just a ruse, designed to make people attack body doubles instead. No-one would suspect New Wave to not be who they were.

But, I had to admit, there was only one real possibility here. One option that actually made some sense, unlike the others.

My dad was dating Miss Militia.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

*** Replacement Nemesis ***

So I need a new nemesis, and it can't be Grue. Let's see, who else is available.

First of all, he, or she, I'm an equal opportunity vigilante, can't be in a team. I'm not in a team, so I can't make someone in a team my nemesis, that just wouldn't make sense.

Circus was out too, because she was apparently with Grue now or something.

The problem was, there weren't all that many independent villains around. Maybe Trainwreck? He was independent right? Or was he part of the Merchants? Didn't really matter anyway, because the Merchants weren't really a team as much as a collection of idiots.

So maybe I could have Skidmark as a nemesis? I'd already taken down his girlfriend, so he'd hate me too. Or could I wait until Squealer escaped from jail somehow? The third option would be Mush, or Moist, or whatever he called himself this week. But, I had the feeling that if anyone ever had an actual fight with him, he'd all of a sudden become really good at using his powers.

Maybe Parian? Sure, she told everyone she was a Rogue, but that didn't mean she wasn't a villain. Maybe she didn't do her taxes correctly, maybe she refused to entertain people at interracial marriages, maybe she was a really new-age type of bigot that didn't to straight white people marriages.

But, you don't want to be known as 'that girl who's nemesis's power is to create giant plushies.'

Maybe Hellhound then? She was known to hang around near the bay with her dogs.

But if I actually hurt those dogs, I'd be known as puppy-kicker. Not really a title you want for yourself.

Maybe I should start looking for some heretofore unknown cape? Maybe one with a power remarkably similar to those found in shitty Aleph movies?

Or could I maybe find some cause to fight for? Instead of a single nemesis, I could fight for something specifically, and my nemesis would be everyone who opposed that idea.

Maybe that ferry that dad was talking about?

So… how would I fight ferry-related crime? Maybe I could fight pirates? Although, there really weren't all that many of those around these days, at least not near Brockton Bay.

Or I could fight the government instead, as a rebel with a cause. I'd have some nice interplay with Kayden where she would stand for order, but also oppression, and I would fight for worker's rights and also go slightly too far, and half the media would crucify me while the other half would love me.

I could probably get a side-job taking pictures of myself and selling them to newspapers too.

I'd need a name for that though.

New idea, instead of figuring out a nemesis, I'd figure out my name, and go from there.

I had shadow powers, and also light powers. Darklight maybe? Or ShadowBright? Maybe Blacklight? I could make horrible jokes with that one.

Or, perhaps, Shadowhunter? Because I hunted from the shadows, but also made shadows disappear with bolts of light?

But, if Kayden heard I was calling myself ShadowHunter, she'd get angry because she'd think I was still trying to hunt down Grue.

LightHunter then? No, that didn't sound right. First of all, it'd be LightHuntress instead. Or maybe Huntress of Light? But that would make it sound like I was hunting lamps. I liked lamps, you could read by them.

My musings were broken by what looked to be a crime in progress. Good, perhaps I could find my new nemesis there.

No, wait, not so good. That was Lung. Big, scary, "I'm going to burn your ass of" Lung.

He was with some ABB guys, just your generic thugs, probably didn't even have their own names, or at least Lung wouldn't have known them.

Not for the first time, I was annoyed at the fact that I couldn't call anyone in my shadow state. Not that I had a phone, but if I'd been able to use electronics and stuff like that in my shadow state, then maybe I could get myself a phone.

Instead, I'd just have to stay up here, floating through the night sky, and observe. Maybe someone else would attack Lung and I could drop by to help.

Now that I thought about it, that could be my thing! I could be the girl that kept doing team-ups with people. They probably wouldn't know I just floated all the way up here all night, so they'd think I was always on the case. Which I was, because I floated up there, but they wouldn't know that, so they'd think I'd have shit like police scanners and secret contacts in the press that send me classified information on cape activity.

Sadly, it didn't look like Lung was doing anything. He was just standing around, shouting at his men every now and then, while more and more of his gangsters were gathering.

Then, they started moving. What would they be doing? Just hanging out together? Planning some dastardly crime of drug-selling? For some reason, I was pretty sure that Lung didn't sell the drugs himself. Not that I'd ever bought any, but, it just seemed to be the kind of thing you didn't do yourself. Same thing with protection money, you didn't say you were with Lung, you said that it would be *wink wink nudge nudge* a horrible thing if Lung showed up and trashed the place.

Which, to be fair, was exactly the same excuse the mayor used when he needed to increase taxes again.

Maybe the mayor was a supervillain? Some sort of super-secret guy like that Coil person? Or maybe he was secretly Kaiser, leading the city by day and the Nazis by night. I'd never seen Kaiser and the mayor in the same room together, and even if I had, photoshop was a thing. As were illusion powers, and cosmetic surgery, and hardlight holograms.

Hmmm, would I be able to 'eat' hardlight holograms? Would I absorb those like I absorbed all other forms of light? Maybe, maybe not, I'd have to find one to figure it out first. I could just walk around the streets touching people, trying to figure out if they happened to be holograms, but, that was the kind of thing a crazy person did, didn't really sound like me.

Eventually, I figured out where Lung was going. He was going into Empire territory.

I didn't know that because of any knowledge about the gangs in the city or anything like that. It was just that he was fighting Hookwolf right now, and I could see Rune and some other guys standing on top of a rock floating in the direction of the fight.

Again, I cursed myself and my power. If I'd had some sort of shadow-phone, I'd be able to call this in and ask for backup. Now, however, I'd need to wait for someone else to call it in, and then for someone else to show up, and then I'd have to join in the fight.

Or maybe I could just wait until the end of the battle? Pick off the stragglers?

In the corner of my eyes, I saw police cars start moving towards the site of battle, as well as two vans that had to be PRT issued, and even a fire-truck. I also spotted Armsmaster on his motorcycle.

This was going to be big. Really big. Just like Lung, who was also getting big.

Sadly, I couldn't see too much of the battle, the difference in illumination between my little floating spot up high in the sky, and the conflagration caused by Lung down below, was just too high.

"Sup?" someone asked me. It was a girl's voice, an absolutely amazing girl's voice.

I looked around, trying to figure out who just spoke to me, but unable to find them. How did they even speak so loudly?

"Up here," someone else said, a guy this time, young.

I turned my shadowy body around, and spotted half of New Wave flying above me. Glory Girl, Shielder, Laserdream, and Photon Mom.

Too bad I couldn't actually talk when being as insubstantial as I was. Still, I moved my shadowy body a little, trying to wave.

"I guess you can't speak like that. Eric?" Photon Mom said. Eric, or Shielder, created a forcefield right below me, which allowed me to stop expending my power. Slowly, but surely, I started turning back to my normal body, until the moment Laserdream activated a button on her hairband that activated a miniature flashlight.

At that point, I immediately turned back into a teenage girl.

"Hi," I said.

"So you're this newer, better Shadow Stalker we've been hearing about," Photon Mom said. It wasn't a question.

"S'not my name, but yeah? I think?" I replied.

"So, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"Same thing you guys are doing? Trying to figure out if I can help with that battle down below. Only I can't see shit because there's too much light, also, I really don't think I can take out Lung."

"Shouldn't you be, like, hunting down Grue or something?" Glory Girl asked.

I started pouting when she mentioned that. "No… Miss Militia will get angry if I do that."

"Miss Militia? Why her specifically? I thought you were independent?" Laserdream said.

"Yeah, but… She's sort of dating my dad?"

"Seriously? Double-M is dating again? Damn girl, your dad better watch out, maybe Chevalier will get jealous," Photon Mom said.

"Why would Chevalier get involved?" I asked her.

"Didn't you know? They used to date, way back during the early days."

Well that was going to suck, if Chevalier dropped by to take down my dad.

On the other hand… If Chevalier managed to win back Kayden's heart, then maybe I could start hunting down Grue again?


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**  
*** Sigh… Teenagers ***

Lady Photon had to admit, the new Shadow Stalker was much more sociable than the previous one. It had been pure luck that allowed Victoria to spot here, floating up here in the sky, a barely visible array of shadowy clouds. Her power was… weird, and complicated. It reminded her a bit of Glory Girl, multiple semi-distinct things.

It was also rather interesting to hear that Militia was dating again, and that the guy was apparently this girl's father. She wondered, did MM know? Probably not, if so, she wouldn't let the girl go out on her own in costume.

"So… what's you guys's plan?" the girl asked. Lady Photon couldn't help but notice she still hadn't given her name, probably because she hadn't thought of one yet.

Sure, it wasn't like Lady Photon was any good, but it really helped to actually be able to name anyone.

"Director Piggot called us for back-up. we'll wait until the fighting dies down or innocents get involved, then we fly down and try to break things up. Unless Lung wins, then we just stay back."

"Why stay back?"

"Because the only thing dumber than attacking Lung, is attacking Lung after he's had time to ramp up."

"Oh, yeah, makes sense…" Stalkerer said.

"So… Name?"

"I uhmmm, yeah… I was thinking, like, the cape without a name or something? Everything I come up with is completely retarded anyway, so maybe I'd be that one girl without a cape name?"

"Ooooh, like Prince! You could make your cape name an unpronounceable symbol!" Laserdream proposed.

"I guess… I'll think about it." the girl said.

The conversation went on, Laserdream, Shielder and Glory Girl proposing more and more preposterous names. "Electric Crossbow Boogaloo, Shadows Stalkers, Shadow Stalker: The two crossbows, Shadow Stalker Reloaded, Shadow Stalker and the Crossbow of Doom, Shadow Stalker Returns, The Shadow Stalker Supremacy, Shadow Stalker and the Crossbow of Secrets, Shadow Stalker escapes from the Birdcage, Shadow Stalker: Fury Crossbow and Shadow Stalker: The Wrath of Crossbow."

When the new vigilante argued that she did not, in fact, use a crossbow, the ideas got worse. "Shadow Stalker Strikes Back, Shadow Stalker 64, Shadow Stalker forever, Shadow Stalker: Modern Warfare, Shadow Stalker 2011, Shadow Stalker 2012 early beta, Shadow Stalker: Not the prequel trilogy, A clash of Shadow Stalkers, Uncharted: Amongst Shadow Stalkers, Shadow Stalker 2, but 4 in Japan, From Shadow Stalker with Love, or for the new continuity, a Quantum of Shadow Stalker/ A Shadow Stalker of Solace, Dawn of the Planet of the Shadow Stalkers, although that one's continuity was a tangled mess, and last but most certainly not least, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Shadow Stalker."

"Fine!" the girl shouted. "I'll go with LightHuntress if you guys just shut up okay?"

"Sure" Victoria said, followed shortly by an "Okay" from Eric and a "Meh" from Crystal.

"What, you don't like it?" Sarah asked her daughter.

"Hey, you're the one that stuck me with the name Crystal, don't blame me if I want other people to get stuck with shitty names too."

"So, one word, two words, hyphen? Light-Huntress: The hyphening?" Glory Girl asked.

"I'm just going to ignore you now." Light-Huntress, or LightHuntress, or Light Huntress replied.

Lady Photon returned to her observations of the fight on the ground. It was a mess, and the Protectorate seemed to agree. They stood back, as Lung had almost grown his wings, and was currently munching on Hookwolf. She could just barely make out the emergency services helping with evacuation.

It hurt, watching the fight like this, knowing that they wouldn't be able to win if they went in. If only the Empire won one of these battles, they would be able to then swoop in and take out their remnants instead. Alas, it seemed like they wouldn't get lucky after all.

She saw Kaiser, or rather; Fenja and Menja, retreat, back deeper into Empire territory, when what looked to be a bomb went off, that suddenly and drastically attracted something to the area. When Sarah took a closer look, she noticed that they were insects, just thousands, maybe millions of them, swarming the area.

Okay, so, apparently a bug cape suddenly appeared out of nowhere with some strange blast?

*** My mom's a cape? She's not my real mom! ***

So, after seeing a strange new array of bombs, including effects with crystals, bugs, space distortion, and weirdest of all, water generation, New Wave decided to wait and fight another day. Never one to doubt my betters, I also chose to not go fight the giant Rage-Dragon and the magic superbombs.

So, halfway through the night, I came home. This time, it wasn't Kayden that was waiting for me. It was dad, watching TV. Some sort of news special, I couldn't quite make out what it was about.

He turned off the tv, and looked at me. This time, I'd taken off my entire costume, or what I pretended was a costume, beforehand. He looked panicked, angry and relieved at the same time.

"Taylor… can you sit down for a bit?"

Not quite understanding what was happening, I decided to sit down on the couch next to him. He'd been crying, I could see by his eyes.

"Have you seen the news?" he asked me.

"You mean the cape fight downtown?" I asked him. It'd probably been in the news.

"It's not that Taylor, it's… Look, we need to talk about your mother."

"What do you mean? Is there something? I don't?"

"Taylor, your mother… she's a cape."

Wait, so dad knew? Also wait, Taylor was calling Kayden my mom now? What the hell? They'd only been dating for like three months…

"She's not my mom dad, no matter how nice she is."

Dad looked shocked. "Taylor… I'm not talking about Kayden, it's about Annette."

"Wait? Wait what? Mom was a cape?"

"I… Look Taylor. You remember how we told you that back in college, your mother was part of Lustrum's crew?"

"I thought she got out before it got violent? Was she a henchman or something? Or…"

A spark of doubt settled into my mind. No. that was preposterous. That couldn't be true…

"She got caught two years ago. The PRT unmasked her, and figured out she was married. Given the crowd she was running with, they called me so we could figure out what to do."

"I… dad, what are you saying…" I knew was dad was saying. I just… had mom really been? No, that made no sense. But the timeline surrounding the arrest, the widely covered court case that I'd missed because I'd been too busy grieving… No… no it couldn't be true.

"She's not dead Kiddo, and she just broke out of the birdcage."

Okay, yeah, that basically confirmed it. Lustrum was my real mom…

Well fuck.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**  
***Robot Genealogy***

"You look down, downer than usual. Did something happen?" Lisa asked the girl that was totes her new bestie. Or something like that, whatever teenagers that didn't have superior minds said these days. She knew, of course, that things had happened. Glory Girl had used the shared app-group that included all teenage capes, except for the villains, in Brockton Bay to inform everyone that new girl, aka LightHuntress, was not hunting down Grue anymore. Because, for some reason, Miss Militia.

Now, if only she could figure out when, and why, Miss Militia had talked to Taylor about that… Colin was supposed to have informed her that the situation was under control. Then again, it was Colin that was supposed to have informed her that the situation was under control, so it was perfectly logical for her to assume that the situation was very much not under control.

"Oh, you know… stuff with my dad," Taylor replied.

It was a lie, blatantly so. At least in part. Yes, it involved her father, but no, it was not stuff with her father that caused all the problems. She would've given less of a shit about it if it was her dad that did something. Unless her father somehow unmasked her, but Lisa was like 80% sure that that would've ended with a quick call to the PRT and enrolment into the wards.

"Oh, anyway, you see the news yesterday? All that cape stuff?" she asked. Maybe it had something to do with that little gang fight.

"What? You mean the birdcage stuff? Didn't really pay attention, not like it'd be relevant, right?" Taylor said.

Yeah, sure, not relevant. Which, Lisa's power easily supplied, meant that it was very, very relevant. In other words, she knew someone who had something to do with someone that had escaped the birdcage. Had her father been a henchman to someone? Did he piss of Marquis back when the supervillain was still around?

"Anyway, gotta go leak real quick, see you in class?" Lisa asked. After some shuffling around, she'd managed to make sure she'd accidently shared every single one of Taylor's classes with her.

"Sure, I'll come with, I needed to go too." Taylor said.

Of course, the age old custom of girls going to the bathroom together. Fuck, that was annoying.

"Nah, I'm kind of a, you know, private pooper. Can't do it while anyone's nearby," she replied.

Taylor looked disappointed. After having finally found friendship, they still couldn't pee together, and peeing together was akin to magic in the eyes of a lonely fifteen year old.

But, life was hard, and Lisa had a robot to call. She ran for the bathroom, checked it was empty, and swiped through the screens on her phone until she reached her fellow mother.

"Hello, D speaking?" the shitty Canadian voice-modulation program said.

It wasn't actually shitty, it was quite a good disguise actually. Even Colin hadn't figured it out yet. That, however, meant nothing when confronted with Lisa's power. It had taken her about three days of casual interaction before she figured it out, mostly from her seemingly contradictory actions. Dragon wasn't like Militia. Sure, both were heroic, and both obeyed the law. But Militia obeyed the law and followed her orders out of loyalty, while Dragon did so because she didn't have any options.

It was a short route from there to figuring out she couldn't disobey, and about a five minute online search to figure out that Saint and the Dragonslayers also knew. Plus, Saint probably also had some sort of anti-AI weapon. If only she had some sort of way to take him down before he could react… Maybe she could convince Saint to hand over his weapon? Tell him she was a much better anti=Dragon weapon? Anyway, that was an entirely useless tangent, and it was time for Lisa to reply to Dragon's greeting.

"Morning D, Lisa here. Can you do me a favour? I need a quick look-up of one Taylor Hebert, student at Winslow High, fifteen years old."

"Lisa, I'm kind of busy, what with my inescapable prison cracking open. There are seventeen highly dangerous capes out there, and I have no idea what they're doing."

"Well, it's kind of about that. I'm pretty sure you'll find something related to the birdcage when checking the girl. I tried, but I don't get access to everything you do."

"Fine, I'll check," Dragon replied.

"Let's see. Some stuff about her father and the dock riots, a note that she's in classes with Sophia, must not have been updated yet, and… Oh, yes, I see how that might be relevant."

"What? What is it?" Lisa asked immediately, she wanted to know. She had to know, she couldn't be on the phone with someone who knew something she didn't!

"It's a sealed court document, regarding the civilian identity of Lustrum."

"Oh… yeah, that'll explain it, guessing they didn't tell her, news came out… My job just gets harder and harder doesn't it?" Lisa replied.

"What, exactly, is your job here Lisa? Colin send you to Winslow to identify the potential parahuman, haven't you already done so?"

"Well, yeah, but now I'm doing all kinds of important stuff like making her like me, it's totally necessary and important you know," Lisa replied, shutting down her phone.

Sure, she had all the information that she wanted, but fucking with that Emma girl was just so much fucking fun!

Lisa hurried back into the hallways, looking for Lustrum's daughter. When she found her, the girl was being cornered by her primary tormenter.

Now, let's see, what was she most insecure about today? Her hair? She had it done up in some ridiculous Game of Thronesy manner, which was, honestly, kind of cool. Her dress maybe? It looked like the kind of thing she probably got from one of her modelling jobs. Jobs she wouldn't have for long, after all, who wanted a nervous trainwreck to represent their brand, but that would take some time.

Maybe her nails, they were painted red today, probably to hide the blood of little kittens or something like that.

No, just trying to impress a boy, her power neatly supplied. Ooh, that was interesting, there was a boy that Emma was after, but which one?

Then again, did it really matter which boy she really liked? After all, once everything would be said and done, everyone was convinced that the real target of her lustful feelings was none other than, well, that was going to be one hell of a surprise.

Thinking about boyfriends though, maybe it was time to set up Taylor with someone? One of the wards, maybe Shielder? She was largely het, even though her mother was, supposedly at least, a radical lesbian. One of the wards? Kid Win maybe? He was nice and non-threatening. Maybe a little too non-threatening, boyfriends weren't any fun if they weren't exciting. Carlos, or maybe Dean? Sure, there was a 64.213% chance Dean was currently dating Glory Girl, but that wouldn't be very difficult to break up, and then Taylor could be his rebound.

Or maybe she needed a bad boy? A nice vaguely dangerous yet still upstanding supervillain for her? Then again, teenage male supervillains meant she was limited to Grue, who was already dating his sister, Regent, who had something semi-masturbatory going on with tentacle girl, and Newter, who came with an entirely different set of problems. Stuff would just be so much easier if TayTay could be a lesbian. A world of possibilities, just waiting for her to explore them.

Maybe some out of towner then? Trade wards with another city to find Taylor the perfect boyfriend? Maybe Tecton? He was the right combination of ripped and nerdy to be the perfect match.

Now, how to take down Emma today? Play around her fears, subtly warning her off? Or just go straight for the throat?

Lisa approached the group of girls, and saw that some of them had noticed her.

"Hey Tay, I heard Lung's ABB beat the crap out of the Empire yesterday, took a shit-tonne of territory."

Taylor suddenly looked at her, not quite sure what to make of the remark. "Yeah? I heard…" she said, almost crying from Emma's actions.

"Just saying, we should watch out. Probably going to be a lot of gang members around after school, I heard part of his claim is centred around Winslow." Lisa said.

"Hey, we were talking," Emma said, trying her best to be condescending.

"Well you girls should know too. Scary gangsters with knifes, who knows what they would do to a pretty girl like you? Horrible to think about," she punctuated her earlier statement. It wasn't subtle, but it didn't need to be. Emma wasn't the type to tell her hanger-ons stuff like that, so they'd just be confused about why she was suddenly stressing out.

Emma looked at her, lightning in her eyes. Lisa looked back, signalling her that yes, she knew, and yes, she would go there. Within seconds, bitchy mac-bitchface was telling her friends they should get to class.

Now, she'd just have to hire some Asian guys to stand menacingly around Emma's route home. 


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

***An amazing con-incidence ***

"So… I can't help but notice, we've been travelling in exactly the same direction for some time now," the Marquis of Brockton Bay said to the god-queen of man-haters.

"Coincidence, I presume," the curly-haired matron replied. "Or perhaps it is fate, if a travel story was good enough for Chaucer, it's good enough for us."

"Oh, you appreciate the classics then?" Marquis answered. "I thought Chaucer was a man, and therefore problematic?"

"It is possible to respect a man's work while still criticizing the society that produced him," the woman replied.

She was, strangely enough, quite sociable, happy even. Marquis hadn't had much contact with her, outside of Birdcage-wide meetings. However, she had a reputation for, well, manhating. Her followers had taken to the streets and slaughtered people after having been swept up in a mad fervour. Where he was a crime lord, she was a revolutionary, or at least that was the reputation that surrounded her.

"Much the same way you respect Acidbath's work in getting us out?" he asked. It had been Acidbath's second trigger that had allowed them to escape. It had changed him into a strange, warping effect, a liquid wormhole, String theory had called it. A freak occurrence, unaccounted for by Dragon, it had allowed some of them to escape before the security system could blow the entire prison wing. At least, he expected Dragon to have done that. After all, it was what he would've done, and Dragon was a lot of things, but she wasn't stupid.

"No, some things cannot be forgiven. If I ever meet that man again, I will kill him," Lustrum said. Then, she turned to him, and looked him in the eyes. "And do not think that I have forgotten about your code Marquis, benevolent sexism is still sexism."

"Yet I am worth more to you as an ally, than as an enemy," he replied calmly.

"Correct. Alone, we are vulnerable, together, we stand strong. I used to tell that to my sisterhood, but it applies here as well."

"So, speaking about standing together, where are you heading? I can only presume we must split ways at some point."

"I am going to visit my daughter," the woman replied. Daughter? That was interesting. Not something he could use against her, he didn't go after women and children, that was his code. Sure, he'd defend himself if a woman attacked him, but it was unmanly to strike back with lethal force.

Still, daughter? That meant she'd lain with a man, adopted someone, or hired a biotinker. Given just who she was, that last option was the most likely. A society without men, the concept proven through the annihilation of the male role in reproduction, that was the kind of thing Lustrum could get behind.

"Interesting, I am doing exactly the same," he replied. He might as well share that information with her, if the woman knew he had a daughter somewhere, she would be less likely to attack him.

"You have a daughter? Some poor girl was foolish enough to lay with you?" Lustrum asked.

"As you may know, given your references, some people like the classics, that includes chivalrous behaviour," he replied.

"Leading a criminal cartel doesn't seem very chivalrous to me," the woman said.

"You forget, as most people do, that chivalry is mostly about medieval battle etiquette, the rest is a poetic invention."

"I did not forget, I simply presumed you did not know," Lustrum replied.

"So, anyway, I'm heading back to Brockton Bay, finding whatever became of the Brockton Bay Brigade, and retrieving my daughter," he said.

"Brockton Bay, it seems fate is having its way with us indeed," Lustrum said. "That is exactly the city I am heading for."

***Meet cute***

Crystal put the last of the books she needed in her bag, and headed out. Just one more year and she'd be done with high-school. Just one more year and she would be eighteen. Just one more year and she would finally be able to change her fucking name.

What had her parents been smoking when they thought Crystal was a good name for a girl? Had they expected her to become a stripper or something? The worst thing was, Laserdream wasn't much better, so going by that wasn't really an option either.

Her older brother had it much better. Eric, Shielder, being eighteen. He was already off to higher education, even if he flew home every night.

Crystal made her way through the hallways of Arcadia, and suddenly spotted Vicky flying through the hallways. "No flight at school!" she yelled after her younger cousin, but it was useless. Carol spoiled the girl rotten, almost the opposite of how she treated Amy. Speaking of Amy, she saw her other cousin run after Victoria.

"Amy, wait up!" she yelled.

Unlike her sister, Amy did react to her presence, and waited for her.

"You two in a hurry?" Crystal asked her cousin.

"Don't know, Vicky got a message and told me to hurry, don't see what the big deal is though."

"I bet its Dean again, it's always Dean," Crystal complained. Typical Vicky, getting the most eligible bachelor of Brockton Bay on the hook, and then dumping him twice a month.

"Yeah, probably," Amy groaned. For some reason, Amy had never liked the empathy, it probably had something to do with the whole _'I know exactly how you feel and that's fucking creepy, and I understand that that creeps you out'_ vibe the guy had going on. There was such a thing as being too understanding.

The conversation was interrupted by a small noise from Crystal's phone. She grabbed the tiny device, and noticed it was from Notradame. What did Armsmaster's adopted daughter want with her this time? She still remembered the last time the girl had asked her for help, when she needed Crystal to thematically complement Uber and Leet's latest escapades.

Smugsmug: Need u BB central library, promise it's worth.

Crystal: What is it this time?

Smugsmug: You'll see when you get here. If not worth, I'll go out with Eric.

Crystal: You're too young for him, so no.

Smugsmug: Panpan then?

Crystal: Fine, but you're dating her either way. She needs someone to cheer her up.

Smugsmug: Deal, but you better hurry, Amy can carry your bag.

Crystal: How did you even? Whatever, I'll be right there.

Smugsmug: Front entrance, at the video-sector!

Crystal looked at her cousin, who was waiting, wondering what the phone conversation had been about.

"Can you take my bag? I'll pick it up later, but apparently I need to hurry," she said.

"Fine, sure, I'll make Vicky carry it," Amy replied begrudgingly.

"Thanks, you're a hero!" Crystal yelled, immediately taking off from the ground after handing over her filled out bag. Sure, she wasn't supposed to fly in the hallways, but this was, according to the smuggest ward on the eastern seaboard, an emergency.

She raced out of the doorways, over the head of an impatiently floating Glory Girl, and headed for the library.

She raced through the sky, feeling the wind flow over her skin. This, at least, Vicky couldn't do. She was protected by her forcefield, meaning she was shielded from the elements and couldn't really feel the rush of flying. It also meant, of course, that Vicky's hair didn't get all messed up from flying at high speeds.

She could worry about that later though, for now, she needed to get to the library. Panpan's love-life depended on it. At least, she hoped it would work out between smugface and chronically annoyed healer. God knew both of them needed to get laid or something.

She looked at the central library, an old, magnificent building, and aimed herself at the entrance. It was relatively quiet, so she could safely go straight for the entrance.

She flew down, slowly braking, planning to come to a halt when she just came inside. It would look totally cool.

As she passed the front doors however, someone carrying a big stack of books suddenly walked past, and Crystal crashed into her.

A second later, Crystal found herself lying on the ground. She and the girl she'd flown into had rolled over together, and the girl was now lying on top of her. In the background, she could just barely hear someone running away.

The girl tried to stand up, and pushed with her arms. When she noticed that her arms were firmly planted on, or very near, Crystal's bosom, she started apologizing frantically.

She looked up into the face of her accidental molester, Luscious hair framed a thin and expressive mouth, and broken glasses accentuated her attractively large eyes.

"Please, don't worry, this was my fault," Crystal said, remembering the lessons in decorum her mother had insisted on. Reputation was important for an independent hero team.

The girl calmed down somewhat, and sat up, no longer leaning on Crystal's body. She removed the broken glasses from her face, but her attention was on something else.

"Oh no, all the books…" she said.

Respect for literature and amazing hair? That was most certainly a nice combination.

"Here, let me help you," Crystal said, and she started collecting the books that were now scattered all over the floor. Together, they started gathering up the books the girl had been carrying. It was a varied bunch. Some things on the physics of light, a few novels about capes, a collection of old English literature. Lots of English literature in fact.

As Crystal reached out for the last book, so did the other girl, and their hands met on the cover. It was a copy of Pride and Prejudice, one of Crystal's favourite novels. Was this just a coincidence, or something greater?

The girl shrank back at the touch, obviously still embarrassed.

Crystal's eyes went to the floor, where the ruined glasses of book girl were still lying.

"I'm so sorry about your glasses," she said. "Do you think, maybe, I can get you a new pair?"

Sure, it was only good form. She'd messed up, so she should repay her debt to this girl. In addition to that, she also seemed, well, nice, and Crystal most certainly wouldn't mind spending time with this shrinking violet.

As she handed the books back to the girl, she didn't notice that, by now, she'd completely forgotten about Nostradame's _''emergency.''_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**  
*** A picture says more than 812 words, and yes, I counted them. ***

After hearing about the blurry girl's offer, I decided that yes, I would like her to buy me new glasses. I also wondered why Lisa had pushed me into the entrance like that, but that could wait until later.

Sure, I could tell dad about my new glasses, but I knew he was low in cash. I could also ask Kayden instead, but then she'd want to join me while shopping, she'd force me into all kinds of stores and all kinds of outfit that matched both my glasses and the furniture of our house, and I would be stuck there for hours. Plus, it would be the kind of clothes that showed my stickly body to everyone else, which would make Emma get even worse, which meant I wouldn't wear them, which meant Kayden would ask why I never wore the clothes she bought me.

So sure, I could stand going shopping with this slightly blurry girl. Plus she enjoyed talking books with me, which was great.

I'd quickly gathered that she was a fan of British classics. Jane Eyre was her favourite book, but her literary tastes weren't limited to the Brontë's. She was also Dickens fan, loved Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and right now, we'd gotten to the topic.

"So, what's your favourite adaptation Taylor?" blurry girl, Crystal, she'd said her name was, asked.

"I'm not sure, I mean, I love the movies, the ones with Robert Downey? But my mother once showed me some really old movies from the forties. I really think the slower style of those fit the character more."

"Not a fan of the more modern stuff then? I love the BBC series with Cumberbatch, though I really like how the made John a woman in Elementary too."

"I have to disagree on Joan Watson. It just, well, it feels wrong, you know? Like it's not really Sherlock and Dr. Watson anymore. Also, who's Cumberbatch?" I asked her as our bus reached the stop where we needed to leave.

As it turned out, a lot of people needed to leave at the stop, and we got separated in the crush of bodies at the exit. Without my rather strong prescription, I couldn't figure out which blurry shape was Crystal until she grabbed my hand, pulling me between a rather slimy looking businessman with dark skin and a girl I might have recognized from class if I'd had my glasses on.

"Sorry bout that, busy stop." Crystal said. I imagine she was smiling, as she sounded very happy. "anyway, how do you not know about Cumberbatch?" she asked, while pulling me forwards through the crowd.

"Never heard of him before, is he foreign? My mother only ever watched English-language stuff." I asked her.

"Well, he's British, but, he's from Aleph. Anyway, knowing you've never heard about him is amazing, it means I get to introduce you to his work!" she said, voice filled with glee. She seemed like a very enthusiastic person, first bringing me along to buy glasses, now inviting me to watch Sherlock adaptations with her… I was kind of paranoid. What if Emma sent her to make me believe I'd made a friend, only to mock me for it? Then again, I'd also met Lisa quite recently, and she most definitely didn't work for Emma. Plus, if things got dangerous, I always had my abilities. I wasn't very recognizeable in my shadow form, so I'd be able to shift the moment I was out of line of sight.

As Crystal was happily pulling me along, blabbering on about the hidden subtext between Cumberbatch and Freeman, a camera suddenly flashed into my eyes, and Crystal suddenly started pulling on my arm. Seeing no other way out, I decided to run along.

"Goddamn papparazi, seriously, they never leave me alone. Fucking assholes." Crystal said as we'd turned a corner into an alleyway.

Papparazi? Why would papparazi be after me, or Crystal for that matter.

Wait… wasn't there someone famous called Crystal in the city? But who was it again? I didn't keep up with gossip rags and that sort of thing but…

Wait. Her voice… Laserdream? Crystal was Laserdream? Crystal was the one that just yesterday had proposed I call myself Dawn of the Planet of the Shadow Stalkers was buying me new glasses?

And someone had taken a picture… a picture of me and her, holding hands. Knowing papparazi and gossip rags… I could understand why Crystal was cursing at the guy, or gal, that had taken the picture.

"If you want, we can finish this some other day? When the papparazi are gone?" I asked.

Crystal turned to me, thinking about something. "No… no that wouldn't be right I shouldn't inconvenience you because of something that keeps happening to me. You know what, instead of going into the mall, I'll call my cousin."

*** Stay the hell away from my daughter! ***

Annette jumped from rooftop to rooftop, an eye on the bus carrying her daughter. She felt hot and tired, much moreso than she used to. All those years in the birdcage had taken its toll on her body, even if it was made out of hard light. But, she was still capable enough to keep up with a bus in the city center, and figure out how her daughter's life was going.

When the city bus stopped, and Taylor made its way out, she almost didn't see her through the crowd. Then, someone suddenly took a picture of Taylor and the girl she was with, an attractive blonde, maybe one or two years older than her, and the two started running.

Had her daughter gotten famous in the few years Annette had been in the birdcage? Had Costa-Brown broken her promise to keep Taylor and Danny out of the spotlight? She'd have to remember the filthy little paparazzi guy in order to interrogate him later on.

Lustrum jumped down to street level, shifting out of her breaker state, and tried to figure out where her daughter had gone. Somewhere in an alley probably, to keep away from the crowd and all the people with cameras.

After several minutes, she remembered a small park quite nearby where she'd gone with Danny a few times. It was away from the main shopping street, and generally quite calm, so that was probably where the two teenage lovebirds had gone.

She couldn't help but squee internally, her daughter, staying away from the evils of men (excepting Danny of course, he didn't count) all on her own.

Manoeuvring through the crowds and the streets of the shopping center, she eventually found a raised flowerbed behind which she could hide, observing her daughter and her girlfriend. They were sitting on the bench together, not close enough to be hugging, but just slightly too close to each other for a normal friendship. She saw her daughter's girlfriend shift just a bit, edging ever closer to little Taylor, who had grown quite a few inches the last few years. They were chatting about something, Annette couldn't hear what, but it seemed to be amicable. Eventually, she saw another girl appear. Slightly shorter, with frizzy brown hair and an adorable set of freckles on her face. She waved, and Taylor's girlfriend waved back. One of her friends? A rival in love?

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were stalking my daughter," a familiar voice said.

Annette looked at the source of the sound, and saw that Marquis had placed himself right next to her, also spying on the girls in the park.

"Well, you'd be wrong, I'm stalking my daughter," she replied.

"The curly-haired one? Sitting next to Laserdream?" he asked.

"Laser-who now?" she replied.

"Look, I know that you entered the Birdcage after I did, so I know you know what the internet is. Laserdream, you know? Crystal Pelham, daughter of Lady Photon, part of what used to be the Brockton Bay brigade?"

Wait, Brockton Bay brigade? That meant New Wave didn't it? That meant… that meant her daughter was dating a female superhero, a living icon of the superiority of the female gender! Annette started to squee while this Laserdream was introducing her daughter to Marquis' daughter, they were so cute together!

Marquis, meanwhile, held his hand in front of her mouth. "Be quiet, we're sneaking, remember?"

*** Eye in the Sky ***

Looking through her tinkertech binoculars, Lisa Wallis spotted the two supervillains, hiding behind a raised flowerbed, spying on underage girls. If she didn't have two very specific pieces of information, she'd think it was a really creepy sex thing. Statistically speaking, it'd probably turn out that way, the two supervillains hatefucking each other after Lustrum figured out her old husband had moved on, but that would be perfectly legal.

In the meantime, she just had to make sure everything went on as planned. First, she'd make Crystal fall in love with Taylor. That had been easy, the girl was a hopeless romantic, and the only reason she was still single was because people were intimidated by fame and powers. Then, the application of a paparazzi for hire, some small sabotaging of Taylor's glasses to ensure they go damaged, and some subtle changes in public transport schedules, had ensured a picture was taken of the two of them holding hands, which had led to the possibility of a relationship with Crystal crystallizing in Taylor's head. Heh, crystallizing, she'd have to tell Assault about that one, he'd get a kick out of it. Then he'd tell Battery, and get another kick out of it, this time literally.

So why would Crystal suddenly call Amy? Taylor wasn't wounded and _Panacea can change her eyes_ of course yes that made way more sense than a threesome before the first date.

Speaking of threesomes, she'd promised Crystal she'd go on a date with Marquis' daughter… That would be interesting, at least if she went at it for real. She'd have to find some way to overpower Gloryhole's aura to even get the girl to consider her… Maybe she could con Collin into making something for that? She'd just tell him it was an absolute necessity in order to counter possibly hostile emotional shakers. That'd probably work, or something.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**  
***Rise of the planet of the shipping dodecahedron***

Theo always thought of himself as a nice guy, someone who always tried to be kind and helpful, who respected his elders and who was not, in fact, a Nazi. Despite what his father might have wanted from him, he was his own man, and he wouldn't let the guy control his life anymore.

You know, as long as he could keep up the courage. Saying no to Kaiser of all people was rather terrifying. It helped that he could now spend the majority of his time at Danny's place, which Max hadn't gotten the courage to search yet.

The cherry on the pudding, was that that allowed him to spend time with Taylor.

He knew it would never work out, Taylor was just one of those girls that was way out of his league. Smart, pretty, yet at the same time always calm, never raising her voice. But she'd never even really looked at him, going straight to her room upon coming home, or spending her time babysitting Aster.

What he hadn't expected however, was the thread he'd just found on PHO, regarding a picture taken of one of the members of New Wave.

 **Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards**

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 **Topic: New picture of Laserdream and Girlfriend!?**

 **In: Boards**

 **Tin_Man** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Cape Groupie) (Veteran Shipper)

Posted on February 2, 2011:

So someone just sent me a link to an album of pictures which seem to show Crystal Pelham AKA Laserdream holding hands with another girl. The sequence ends with them running into an alleyway together, probably to get hot and busy together.

Does anyone know who this mystery girl is? How long they've been dating? I know there's quite a few fans of SquealerDream on here, but that's been less and less likely since Squealer got arrested, so is this the new OTP

 **[User was warned for this post]**

 **(Showing Page 3 of 3)**

 **► fitshucker9000** (Unverified Cape)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Of course the one eligible young superheroine in the city turns out lesbian, Fuck this shit I'm out.

 **► TallDarkandSister**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

What, you forgot about Panacea, Shadow Stalker, that other new Shadow Stalker, Nostradame and Vista? All girls, all single as far as we know. Though Vista may be a tad young. Anyway, did anyone ID this chick yet?

 **► XxVoidCowboyxX**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Whoa, I know who that is. Didn't know she was a Lesbian

 **► 666Apache666** (Verified Cape)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Well, after all this stuff with Grue coming out, we have both Grue and I as LGBTIQA+ people on the villain side of things. It was about time that the heroes also showed some representation, Does anyone know if she's really Lesbian though? Because Bi erasure is an issue people.

 **► Nostradame** (Unverified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (Wards ENE) (Admin's favourite)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Apache

How did you get to be verified, seriously? Also, kickass icon under gender, way better than the traditional stuf!

can't confirm what this picture means (I only use my thinker powers for good, and cheating at cardgames), but I can say that there's more representation than you might think.

Also, that Grue thing was a misunderstanding on our part, Turns out he got those skimpy dresses for his sister.

And Grue's sister, if you're reading this (I know you are), I'm willing to pay top dollar for embarassing baby pictures. You know, if that sort of thing was legal (which it's not). Anyway, to everyone speculating on the other girl in the picture, you should probably cut it out before the mods make you stop.

 **► SpecificProtagonist** (Temp-banned) (Cape Groupie)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

The fuck is Laserdream doing with that skank **[Redacted]**? She could do so much better! fuck that girl, slut's so stupid she can't even get herself a man.

 **[And that's what Nostradame warned you for. No speculation on civilian identities, even if they are civilians.]**

 **► TallDarkandSister**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Nostradame

No baby pictures, but I do have his phone-number if you're interested. I know how much you white hats pine after broody guys.

 **► Dragon** (Verified Cape) (PRT) (Guild)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

666Apache666

I see you've gotten yourself verified. Regardless of your villainy, if you ever need help in expressing your gender identity, just send me an email. It takes courage to stand up for yourself like you did, especially in a city like Brockton Bay.

Nostradame

No asking for the phone numbers of supervillain boys, even if you want to seduce him to the light side. Or do you want me to tell your father?

 **► Feet_of_Clay**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Seriously, she's dating another girl? Guess I'll never have a chance All the good girl's are always taken.

And no, not talking about Laserdream here.

 **► XxVoidCowboyxX**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Feet_Of_Clay

Stay away from her you creep, she gets enough shit from people already.

 **► Feet_of_Clay**

Replied on February 2, 2011:

VoidCowboy

Shut up, you don't know her like I do. Can't you just be happy she found love?

 **► Uther_BanBringer** (Moderator)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

Guys, this thread is skirting the line as it is, I need you guys to leave the civilian girl alone and take it to PM's if you want to have your creep-off. SpecificProtagonist, Here's a hammer in your face, did you forget what happened to Fleur?

Also, try to keep speculating on the romantic lives of minors to a minimum.

 **► Nostradame** (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (Wards ENE)

Replied on February 2, 2011:

TallDarkandSister

Why would I want what I already have? Also, maybe buy him some deoderant for those sweaty motorcycle leathers?

Dragon

You're not my real mom!

 **End of Page.** **1** **,** **2** **, 3**

He looked at the screen. Whoever this VoidCowboy was, he needed to protect Taylor from that creep. Except… they didn't go to the same school, so how would he ever figure out who it was?


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

*** A Nazi will remain a Nazi, no matter the type ***

Zoe looked at the class, and wondered what had happened. Emma, queen of the race traitors of Winslow, was suddenly the butt of every joke. Lisa, the new girl, was the one making the jokes, and had somehow gotten popular after becoming friends with Taylor of all people. Zoe didn't pay much attention to what the little shits in Winslow were doing, but even she knew Taylor wasn't exactly popular. Sophia, normally the exemplar of a savage barbarian, was behaving perfectly, not even punching Ed after he called her a degenerate. Stuff just didn't make sense these last few days.

And now, everyone kept glancing at Taylor when they thought she wasn't watching. Had she missed something? Did something happen with Taylor?

She glanced at the teacher, Mr Quinlan was, as always, barely paying attention to what he was saying. Good, that meant she could gather intel for operation figure out what the fuck is happening.

She grabbed her phone, and considered her options. She could message one of her minions, who were technically her uncle's minions, and ask them what happened. Or, she could go on PHO and try to figure it out that way. Sure, it seemed absolutely preposterous that a forum on capes would have information about the politics of her Math class, but you never knew.

Five minutes later, Zoe was very happy at having made her decision to browse PHO instead. First of all, it had turned out that Grue wasn't transgender at all, and was just really into his sister. Which was good, the world needed more beefcake. Also, it seemed like Nostradame already had Grue's phone number. She'd have to ask her to share it the next time they fought. Also, it turned out Taylor was maybe dating Laserdream, which was, well, it was absolutely horrible and wrong of course, because lesbianism was absolutely horrible and wrong, but they were also kind of cute together, and after the shit she got from Emma, Taylor deserved to have someone like that.

It also explained the look on the face of Greg Veder's, who now needed to find someone else to pine after endlessly. As long as it wasn't her, she was alright with that. Maybe she could sic him on Sophia? She was being really meek right now for some reason, so she'd probably say yes. Plus, it'd help break Sophia and Emma's friendship, which would make for some great fireworks.

She looked up from her phone, back at the class, and her eyes met Lisa's, who started making an elaborate set of hand gestures. Either she wanted to meet Zoe on the roof, or she was really into fish-flavoured ice-cream. Zoe had never really played a lot of hints. Uncle Krieg said that signing was for mutes and mutes were degenerates because they weren't him, so there was no speechless conversation in his household.

Mr Quinlan, AKA like 90% sure it's Chubster, was also ignoring the class, and looking at something on his phone.

"Well, that will be all for today students. Go do self-study or something," He said, suddenly leaving the room.

Most of the people waited five seconds, and then immediately left class. Zoe joined them, apparently, Lisa had something to say. First though, she checked PHO real quick, maybe it had information about whatever made Mr Quinlan leave?

Fifteen minutes later, Zoe opened the door to the roof, and looked around. No Lisa anywhere. She stepped forward in order to get a better view, and suddenly felt a cold sharp feeling on her neck.

"Sup Rune, wanted to talk for a bit." Lisa said. She'd hidden herself behind the door, which opened outwards, and now had what could only be Nostradame's Electrorapier in her hands.

What the fuck was this girl doing with a wards' tinkertech weapon? Had she stolen it? Was it a fake?

"Not a replica you idiot. In case you hadn't noticed, it's actually me," Lisa said.

"The fuck do you want? Unwritten rules much?" she replied, very conscious of the thin rod of steel at her throat. One flick of Lisa's finger, and Zoe would be zapped into next week, and also a jail cell. She couldn't go to jail again, jail fucking sucked. Which, you know, was kind of the point. But still though.

"Relax, relax, I'm not telling anyone who you are. You know, as long as you do me a favour."

"And why would I do a favour to a race-traitor?" Zoe replied.

"We literally just went over this Zoe, because otherwise I'm going to tell my dad, who's going to come after you with a giant halberd and branded underwear."

Zoe thought about it, doing a favour to someone with a hot Latino guy on her team, or having Armsmaster bring her underwear, and also pole arms.

"Fine… what do you want me to do."

"Give me your number, I'll send you a message when I have something set up. Trust me, you'll like it, you get to beat up Gloryhole."

"She know about this?"

"Nope, that'd take away all the fun. Anyway, see you later, also, watch your vitamin C intake, you don't want to get scurvy" Lisa replied.

"Fuck you and fuck your lemons!" Zoe replied.

"No no no Zoe, the entire point of this exercise is fucking Panacea, not you."

"Whatever, we both know you know my number already, so I'm leaving."

"Sure thing scurvy-girl, just remember to come when I call."

"You know I can sic Hookwolf on you right?"

"And I can sic Dragon on you. I think she'll win. If not, Eidolon, I'll bribe him with a puppy."

At that, Zoe decided to just leave. That was the real problem with Nostradame/Lisa. Sure, she was bullshitting like 90% of the time and she probably couldn't bribe Eidolon with a puppy. The problem was the 10% where she wasn't bullshitting. The last time, it had ended with Fenja developing Giant-sized zits. She really didn't want to get on her bad side.

Walking through the school, she decided to take the back entrance. She had a spare costume stored in a nearby alley, so she could just float back towards uncle Krieg's territory instead of having to deal with all the idiots on the bus.

As she left the school building, she noticed it was remarkably quiet. Usually, there would be a couple of proper white soldiers smoking blunts back here after school. Not today then. Maybe they were at one of Hookwolf's fights?

She entered the alley, and looked under the dumpster she was using as a hiding spot. Then, she figured out that here costume was gone. Lisa of course, messing with her head.

She heard a noise behind her, and turned around. A strange forty-something woman was standing behind her, studying her costume.

"Rune, I presume?" she said. Her brown, curly hair framed her face. She wasn't wearing a costume, and Zoe didn't recognize her, but she seemed dangerous.

"Yes…" she replied, trying to think of a way to get out of this.

"Let me guess. You had a bad home life. Financial trouble, a bad marriage, alcoholic father that would beat up your mother, sometimes hitting you as well, am I on track so far?"

Was this woman some sort of second Nostradame? Was she Lisa back from the future with a new haircut just to fuck up her life?

"Yes, no… I mean, sort of… who the fuck are you lady." She replied. This time, she didn't have a tinkertech taser at her neck, this time, she was ready to fight.

"Then, you got into trouble with the law, some pig arrested you, some guy in a position of authority decided to take out his bad day on you, sending you to prison, and even now, some old man in the Empire Eighty-Eight controls your leash."

"Fuck off, don't you talk about my uncle like that." Zoe yelled back. The problem was, basically everything this woman said was right.

"Don't you get it Rune, everything wrong in your life? It's not your fault, it's the patriarchy's fault. And I, Lustrum, can help you with that."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**  
*** Dragon Bone(r) ***

Kenta looked at the man in front of him, some foolish American upstart, thinking he could take the dragon. He laughed, and took a few steps forward.

"Do you really think you can take me? You're pathetic, look at yourself."

The man did, in fact, look at himself.

"I have to admit, these are low quality clothes, but did no-one ever tell you that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

Kenta laughed, and he imagined how the man's skull would look once he had crushed it.

"I have had enough of your blabbering, make peace with your god," he said, calling forth the flames.

Around them, the parking-lot reflected the light of the fire that now surrounded him. He felt his suit disintegrate on his skin. He was thankful for his fireproof pants, they wouldn't burn until he was more fully transformed, and they protected him from being publicly embarrassed. To speak the truth, he was really more of a tiny wyvern down there. Kenta had the internet, he knew what a true dragon dong looked like.

He stepped forwards, already a head taller than the strange longhaired man in front of him. He held out his fist, ready to lock it around the man's head and fry his brain.

A split second before his fiery hand reached the man's head, spikes of bone shot out of his opponent's face, impaling Kenta's hand.

Ahhh bones, so that was his opponents power. Still, it was nothing in front of the Dragon.

Kenta didn't bite through the pain. Instead, he relished in it. He twisted his hand, harming himself further, and felt the fire within him grow.

The bones that impaled Kenta's hand grew into a long stave, pushing Kenta and his opponent away from each other.

"I used to go by the name Marquis, you might have heard of me?" the man asked him, polite to a fault.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot him!" Kenta yelled. At that, his soldiers started firing at the intruder.

The intruder retaliated by making the long stave of bone connecting his face to Kenta's hand fall apart, and covering himself in a round bone shield.

Kenta laughed. If his opponent was already on the defence, this would be easy. He stepped forward towards his enemy, ready to smash through his puny shell and burn the man from the inside out.

Instead, he cursed like a sailor as he felt pain lance through his feet. He looked down, caltrops, created from the stave of bone that had pushed him backwards. This would be annoying.

He pushed through, and focused his mind on the pain. It nourished him, and he felt the pain recede as sharp claws, or talons, flying maybe warmblooded lizards didn't have very clear terminology, came out through what remained of his shoes.

Eventually, his men stopped firing, and Lung smashed through the bone shell, only to find it empty, a hole in the floor beneath it. He turned around and looked at his men. Three of them had been gutted by lances of bone appearing from the floor, the rest was looking around, trying to find some sort of cover. A few of them were standing on top of cars, trying to put more space between their feet and the floor.

Lung jumped down the hole to the floor below them, just in time to see this Marquis figure create a new hole, grab one of his lieutenants, throw the lieutenant down with a bone lance through his gut, and ascend upwards.

Annoying, Lung thought. He shouldn't have brought the men. However, he still had his Oni Lee in reserve. This would be resolved quickly.

He looked back up, and shouted.

"Retwheat, I hangle dis!" the words came out, the words not forming correctly in his metal maw. He jumped back up, pulling himself up by the edge of the hole, only to see three more of his men gutted. Yan, one of the few women in his retinue, the man had spared. She was nursing a maimed calf, but unlike the rest, she had not been outright slaughtered

He ran forward, using his enhanced strength to accelerate at inhuman speeds. Marquis turned to him, and a spear of bone, growing towards Lung. Lung ran forwards. He would grab the bone, pull it towards him, and burn him until nothing but bones and ashes remained. That would be nice and, what was the word? Ironic?

However, when he grabbed hold of the lance, it started growing extensions outwards, rooting it into the floor and ceiling. He wasn't strong enough to move it and the parking-lot with it. Not yet. Instead, he threw a fireball towards Marquis, who dodged it by launching himself away with bone growths coming out of his feet. Instead, the fireball hit a car, which caught flame and started its alarm.

The man was tricky, and fast, but he had limits, and Lung did not. Lung roared, loudly, fire joining sound. This would be a good, long fight. Perhaps he would get the chance to fly again. Even within the rage of battle, he'd always found a measure of peace in the flying.

He launched two more fireballs at Marquis, blinding him before dashing forwards.

The fireballs, Marquis dodged, and he landed exactly where Lung had expected him to land. Lung laughed, and drew back his arm to strike. The man would dodge, just barely, and the fight would go on like that until Lung was too large and too fast to dodge.

Except… instead of dodging, the man countered, a razorsharp blade of bone appeared around Marquis' arm, and he lopped of Lung's arm like it was nothing. Too late, Lung saw that the man had used the same extending bone lances to drive his own arm forward with enough speed to strike with that much force.

Lung laughed. Sure, a lost limb hurt, but the fight wasn't over, it had only just begun.

A second after losing the first limb however, Lung's legs were removed by a sweeping low kick from Marquis. The bastard even made a little pirouette while doing it.

This angered the dragon, and Lung got ready to engulf the entire building in fire, but the moment he opened his jaw, he felt a sword of bone touching the roof of his mouth. He tried to move, but suddenly felt that Marquis had done something to what remained of Lung's legs and arm.

"Well then, let us continue our earlier discussion, mister Lung. I am in a good mood today, so I shall give you a choice. Either I take over your organisation and kill you here, or I will take over your organisation and you with it. Which shall it be?"

Before Kenta could answer, he saw Oni Lee appear behind Marquis. Gun in hand, ready to fire a high-calibre bullet straight through the man's head.

Instead of that happening, a lance of bone impaled Oni Lee from below before he could teleport away. Oni Lee had been standing on the caltrops that covered the battlefield. Apparently, Marquis could sense through his bones even when they were severed from him.

As his subordinate was bleeding to death, Lung could only think to do one thing.

"I shahl shurrendher."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**  
*** So what's this about shipping and the boat graveyard? ***

I checked under the bathroom stall's door to see if I could see any feet, spotted some, and waited some more. Quinlan had let us out early, which meant that half the class had immediately swarmed me. Apparently, yesterday's pictures had been spread around on PHO, and also appeared on the front-page of a local gossip rag.

Like it or not, I was now famous for apparently being Laserdreams girl-toy. It was strange, all that had happened was that she'd held my hand, and apparently that meant we were doing some rather lewd things together, at least according to the internet. It was almost as if two teenage girls couldn't talk together without the internet deciding they were a couple.

Sure, I'd done similar things myself, and nothing could convince me that Legend and Myrddin weren't meant to be together, but that didn't count, those were capes.

Sure, Crystal was a cape, and I was one as well, but no-one else knew I was a cape, so it didn't count.

I thought back on yesterdays meeting. Her crashing into me in the library, taking the bus together, meeting her cousin Amy, having her use her power on my eyes. It still felt weird, not wearing glasses, but no-one had made any remarks about it. I'd expected Emma to say something horrible again, but she'd been in complete shock all day. She was probably jealous that everyone thought I had something going on with Crystal.

The very idea… Crystal was thin and in very good shape, had long luscious hair, skin softer than a baby, and those lips…

And me, I was just ugly old Taylor. My only redeeming feature was my power, and not only was that incapable of taking down a thug like Grue, Crystal didn't even know about it. There was absolutely no way a girl like her and a girl like me could work together.

Not to mention, I was pretty sure I liked boys. I'd always liked boys. I still remembered playing pretend with Emma, back in middle school. We'd take turns pretending to be a guy, acting out sappy romance scenes from movies. That wasn't gay because we had been perfectly clear that Emma counted as a guy for that. Plus, Emma was a total bitch anyway, so it wasn't like I liked Emma.

In other words, I was 100% totally straight, and there was absolutely nothing happening between me and Crystal except for maybe the two of us being friends.

I looked again, and this time, the bathroom was empty. I left my stall, and made my way through the largely empty hallways, finally capable of walking around without everyone staring at me.

I made my way outside, looking at my watch to see how long I'd have to wait for the bus.

Once outside, I made my way past the groups of gangbangers and pot-merchants that had nothing better to do with their day than gawk at me, towards the bus stop.

The previous bus had just left, and I'd have to wait for the next one to arrive.

As the minutes ticked by, I heard a noise behind me and turned around. Another girl was walking towards me, wearing an overly large hat, a big raincoat, and massive sunglasses. The only thing missing was the fake moustache.

"Hey," Crystal said, giving me a wave.

"Hey," I replied, suddenly extremely aware of the fact that I was blushing. It was probably because she was a famous person, that was what made me nervous.

"I've been thinking… I wanted to apologize for this entire media circus, but I couldn't call you, because I didn't have your number… because you, you know, didn't have a phone, and…" she said, stumbling over her words.

Then, she grabbed a small package out of her pocket and handed it to me.

"Youcanhavethismynumberisalreadyinthereseeyoulaterokaybye?" she said as I looked at the package. Before I could reply, she suddenly flew up into the air, and quickly left my sight.

She was probably embarrassed at having to talk to someone like me…

I looked at the package. It was rectangular, wrapped in fancy wrapping paper with roses and hearts on it, it was probably the only thing she'd had left. Opening it up, I saw that it contained a smartphone. I had no idea what kind it was, but it looked rather expensive, had she given me the wrong present?

I removed it from the box, and activated it. It wasn't locked, and I saw that she'd modified it so the background was a picture of her in her costume, floating in the night sky of Brockton Bay. Looking at the picture, I saw that this costume was slightly different from what I'd seen her wearing before. There was less protective padding, and more frilly details. It made sense, having two sets of outfits, one for combat and one for pictures and events and such.

Suddenly, I saw an incoming message. I clicked on it, and saw the sender was tagged as Crystal/Laserdream.

 _Hey_

The message said.

 _Hey_

I replied.

The phone was silent as the bus arrived and I made my way in, sitting down somewhere in the back.

A phone beeped somewhere in the background as I grabbed a book and started reading. It took three pages and five more beeps until I remembered that I now had a phone, and looked at it. Six messages, all from Crystal.

 _-It was nice to see you again._

 _-Sorry I had to leave so quickly._

 _-Again, sorry for all that paparazzi stuff._

 _-Do you like coffee?_

 _-I mean, in general, but if you want to have a drink together that's okay too?_

 _-I'm sorry if I'm smothering you with messages._

As I'd reached the last message, another one came in.

 _-Please don't think I'm a creepy stalker or something like that?_

I thought about it for a while. Was she that lonely, that she only had me to text? I decided to type out a reply, trying to handle the phone's tiny keyboard.

 _-I'm really more of a tea person._

I replied, before realizing what I'd just said. Almost immediately, I send out another message.

 _-Not that I wouldn't want to drink coffee with you or anything_

This time, Crystal took a while to reply. I started overthinking my last messages. Had I scared her of? Did she hate tea? Was she having a torrid love-affair with Lung, and had she set me up to keep the press occupied? As I left the bus, having reached the stop closest to the library, my phone finally beeped again.

 _-Sorry, had to beat up a purse-snatcher. Do you have time tomorrow? I have a superhero thing this afternoon, but maybe we can text during? It's a PRT briefing about some new villains in town so it's not as interesting as texting with you J._

I suddenly realized why she was texting me. It was because she needed someone that wasn't a superhero to text to during boring superhero stuff.

One of these days, I was going to have to tell her I was secretly a vigilante, and that we'd met before, in costume. I'd probably also have to tell her that my mother was one of those new supervillains.

Or, I could just find the courage to text her all that instead. Text-messaging was an amazing invention, allowing people to send each other messages without any of the awkwardness surrounding normal face-to-face contact. Perfect for people like me. I just wondered why Crystal seemed to like it as well.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**  
*** There's no safes in this safehouse…***

I put my phone back in my pocket as I walked home from the bus-stop. Ever since mom had died, he had been weird about phones. Except Annette wasn't dead at all, instead, she was an escaped birdcage inmate.

So why the fuck was my dad still all weird about phones then? Had my mom been imprisoned because she got a phone-call during a cape fight? Or was it just another lie to make me believe that she was actually dead? Did my dad secretly have a phone he used to flirt with Kayden over text when she was on patrol as Miss Militia?

I turned the corner, and noted several marked vans standing in the street. The markings were PRT markings, and seconds later, I spotted a rather famous, and amazing, motorcycle.

Then, I heard Kayden, raising her voice.

"I can take care of myself okay, I'm not afraid of some manhating slut!" she yelled out.

I looked, and saw her standing on the porch, holding Aster, and talking to… Miss Militia?

Well that didn't make any sense, why would she be yelling at herself?

Options were racing through my mind. Was this a fake Miss Militia? A fake Kayden? Was this a double disguise somehow? Was Kayden not Miss Militia?

"Look ma'am, we're talking about a highly dangerous criminal, one that has apparently been recruiting. If she figures out you have been, well, you know…" Miss Militia said to Kayden.

"I've dealt with abusive partners before, if this bitch tries to hurt my Danny, she'll have to go through me!" Kayden yelled.

I looked around, and noticed some of the neighbours looking out of the windows at what was happening.

Slowly, I kept walking, trying to figure out how to get past the two yelling women on the porch. Instead of saying anything at my approach, the few PRT troopers stationed around the house just kept watching the lady with the baby yelling at Miss Militia, their mouths wide open.

I made it all the way to the porch until someone noticed me. It was Kayden, handing me a half-crying Aster so she could start properly shouting.

I'd stopped listening to the words, seeing how both of them kept rehashing the same arguments. Militia was saying something about it not being safe, while Kayden kept shouting that she was going to beat up my mother.

I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that.

Shushing Aster, I made my way inside, where I saw my father sitting at the table with Armsmaster and Nostradame, going over some papers and documents.

"Like I just said, she didn't tell me until Taylor was three years old, and even then, she always kept her two life's separate. I'm quite sure that any of her old friends that I actually met weren't involved in the movement."

"Which is why we need their names. Most of her old organisation has been destroyed or radicalized even further in the years she spend in the birdcage, so if she went into hiding, she would probably do it with a friend that was not a part of that."

The two of them had made several notes, and I recognized an old notepad mom used to use to write down the phone numbers of friends, before mobile phones were a thing.

Suddenly, dad noticed me.

"Taylor, you're late…" he said.

"I went by the library, talked with a friend for a bit," I replied, motioning towards the stack of books in my bag. Most of them were recommendations from Crystal.

When I said the word friend, I suddenly saw a strange smile appear in Nostradame's face. What was so funny about me talking to a friend? After all, Crystal was just a friend…

"You can keep those books in your bag," Armsmaster said, cutting of my father from saying anything. "I'm afraid the four of you are going to need to spend some time in a safehouse."

"Is this about mom?" I asked him.

"Yes," he replied.

"She's recruiting supervillainesses, already got Rune, is probably going after Hellhound next. Not Grue though, yer mom's a TERF," Nostradame chimed in, a massive smile on her face.

"Nostradame, we both know Grue stole those skimpy dresses for his sister, studies have shown that implying someone is trans when he is not is rude," Armsmaster replied. Then, he looked in my direction. "Taylor, right? I'd prefer if you could go to your room and start packing. The sooner you and your family are in the safehouse, the safer it is."

"Okay…" I replied as I walked towards the stairs. This was going to be… weird…

"Oh, and before I forget, did you have any contact with supervillains the last few days?"

"Why are you asking?" my father asked him, trying to come to the defence of his daughter.

"Because they may have been recruited by Lustrum. So, Taylor, what about it?"

I thought about it. Had I talked to any supervillains the last few days?

The answer, obviously, was yes. I'd talked to that damnable dastardly Grue, I'd talked to Circus, and I'd even taunted Squealer a bit while taking her down.

"No," I answered.

Armsmaster didn't seem to like the answer, he looked as if he was somehow disappointed in me.

Before he could probably react, I made my way upstairs to my room, and started filling a bag with clothes and other stuff I'd need.

*** Spilling secrets like it's mom's spaghetti ***

"So, anyway, as I was saying, the daughter's Light-Huntress, I'm pretty sure that woman Hannah was arguing with is Purity, and I think she was referring to Kaiser when she was talking about abusive partners," Lisa said, holding on to her adoptive father's back as they were racing through the city on his motorcycle.

Colin sighed deeply before replying. "And you're only telling me now because?"

"Because it's more funny this way!" Lisa replied. "Also, Taylor's dating Laserdream, she just doesn't know it yet."

"Doesn't know Crystal is Laserdream?" Armsmaster asked her, confused.

"No, she doesn't know they're dating. They are though."

"So Laserdream is probably a no for Lustrum-recruitment. What about Glory Girl and Panacea?"

"Well, I don't think she'll go after Panpan, seeing how Marquis will get angry." Lisa replied.

"That's supposed to be a secret."

"Not a very good one, took me like two minutes."

"So what you're saying is, it's on the level of the launch codes," Armsmaster replied.

"Hey, not my fault they were literally the president's birthday. How was I supposed to know my guess was actually true?" Lisa said, acting all outraged.

"By using your power?" he suggested.

"Ehhh, that's such a headache, literally," she replied.

"You spent a week in M/S confinement in the white house!" he retorted.

"Well, yeah, which meant a week without school and an amazing breakfast each morning. So, you know, win-win," she joked. Sure, being incommunicado sucked, but white house food turned out to be amazing. Plus, school sucked if there was no Emma around to fuck with. Not literally fuck with, that was what Panpan was going to be for once Lisa got herself over the yuckiness of people in general. Maybe she'd go in with a massive migraine? Unable to use her power? That could work. Only then she'd need to come up with a headache every time they had sex, and it wouldn't be because she didn't want to.

"Is there anything else you've figured out that I need to know?" Armsmaster asked her.

"Don't think so, except… you already knew Dragon is an AI right?"

"Yes, I knew that one."

"And you also knew Assault used to be a villain right?"

"Yes, I knew that too."

"And about how director Piggot and Coil are secretly dating?"

The motorcycle halted in the middle of the street, making a screeching noise. "Wait what!?" Armsmaster shouted.

"Just checking if you were paying attention." Lisa replied. Behind them, the decoy convoy of marked PRT vehicles came to a stop, waiting for them to continue.

"Anyway, about that unicorn…" she asked.

"Once again, no, I'm not going to bribe Blasto to make you a unicorn. First, it's wasteful. Second, he's a supervillain. Third, I just know that the moment you find a boy you like it's going to be up to me to take care of it."

"Why would I like a boy more than a unicorn?" she asked him.

"Because Unicorns only like virgins…" he replied.

Lisa thought about that statement for a second before deciding that yes, it did make sense. You know, if you counted Dragon as a really advanced sex toy. She was suddenly very happy that Dragon wasn't listening in on this specific conversation.

Although… maybe Dragon could make her a robot-unicorn?


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**  
*** Hashtag supervillain ***

"I am not here to fight you, only to enlighten you as to the true nature of the world" Lustrum said, using her gigantic hands to keep away the two largest dogs.

Seeing an opportunity, Rune, or rather Freya, she'd recently changed her name, recently as in that afternoon, took a quick picture on her phone, and started to write her tweet. Below her, three of Bitch's dogs were jumping up and down, trying to reach the car she was standing on. Yeah, right, like they were going to catch her. She looked at her tweet:

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _"_ _I am not here to fight you, only to enlighten you as to the true nature of the world" #Lustrum #feministfuture_

Attaching the picture she'd just taken, she posted her tweet. Within seconds, people started liking, replying and retweeting.

"Fuck off and leave me alone" Rachel Lindt said. Weird, that even in this day and age, people still went by their father's last name. This was, obviously, a sign of the patriarchy. Annette had been a great teacher, and had shown her how the vile hand of men-kind could be seen in every facet of society. Even twitter, the greatest ally of any and all activists, was filled with their y-chromosomal corruption

 **Leet** games &tinkering

 _RadicalRune Shut up you nitwit, your new boss just stomped on my go-kart for absolutely no reason! You could've fucking killed us! #capelivesmatter_

Rune, no, wait, Freya, floated down towards her teacher, who had managed to wrestle the dogs away, and had quickly grabbed Bitch in one of her hands.

"Young lady, I understand that you have had a hard life, and that you never stood a chance in this horribly misogynist world that values women by their looks, but-"

She was interrupted by Bitch spitting in her face.

"You calling me ugly? Fuck you!"

As Lustrum tried to wipe the spit over her now absolutely massive face, Rune took over on dog duty, and sent a few large rocks lazily floating towards the bigger animals, Brutus and… Lando Calrissian? They were both named after famous traitors, that she remembered. Also, male traitors, because all men were traitors. Inspiration struck, and she took out her phone again

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _How come all famous traitors in movies are male? Is it because men are pigs? YES #feministfuture #menarepigs_

"Hey boss, how long are we staying here?" she asked her new leader while typing out the tweet.

"I told you Freya, we're forging a new society without the degeneracy of the male gender. One without authoritarianism or castes. I am not your leader, I am simply your teacher."

As Lustrum finished her sentence, Rune managed to snap another picture, and attached it to yet another tweet with a quote

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _"I am not your leader, I am simply your teacher._ " _#Lustrum #feministfuture_

She quickly looked at her previous two tweets, already up in popularity. She had to admit, the last few hours had been great. She'd gotten rid of uncle Krieg, Kaiser and all those other stuffy assholes, she'd found a new purpose in life, and she'd gotten a shit-ton of followers on twitter.

"Sure thing teacher, anyway, I think we better hurry up cause the agents of the patriarchy will probably be here in like ten minutes or so."

"Very well young student," Lustrum replied. "Rachel Lindt, I am giving you another chance to join us. Imagine, if you will, a world without the patriarchical systems of oppression that hunt you down, without the ruthless bloodthirst of men hurting innocent dogs in their fighting rings. Join us, and we will tear down their tyranny together, with the sisterhood, the pack, that can be found in all women of the world!" she continued.

"Fuck you! Brutus and Judas are boys!" Rachel replied, spitting in Lustrum's face again.

"Very well, you will learn in time," Lustrum said. With a dark look on her face, she threw Rachel to the ground.

Seeing that their boss was now relatively safe again, one of the dogs, Freya thought it was Judas, attacked Lustrum again. This time, her teacher did not show mercy, and her massive fist- about half the size of the dog- smacked into it, tearing apart the flesh and bone that made up the creature.

Then, she grabbed the remains, and threw them to the ground near Rachel, splattering the villainess with gore.

Quickly, Freya took another picture, and attached it to a tweet while she followed her new teacher.

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _Villainess? You mean gender traitor? Sad. Low Energy. #Lustrum #FeministFuture #Notoursister_

As she followed Lustrum, she checked through her followers and replies again. Absolutely everyone was following her now, especially celebrities and people like that. Even some male celebrities that kept telling everyone that all men were horrible and needed to be eradicated. Really fucking weird.

Then, she suddenly spotted a private message, from a verified account no less. A very famous verified account

 **Alexandria** PROT_ALEX

 _Hello Zoe, I understand how difficult it can be to navigate this man's world, but you must understand that violence is not the answer, there are good men in the world. Turn yourself in, and I promise that I will take you on as my personal apprentice._

Zoe looked it over for a bit, worried that the Protectorate had managed to figure out her real name. Or rather, the fake name she was using as her real name right now. She'd had a different real name before, but that one had gotten ruined when she'd broken out of juvie with her newly acquired powers.

"Hey teacher, turns out Lexy is a gender traitor too," she said, taking care not to call her boss anymore.

"How do you know this? Also, why are you constantly playing with your phone? Don't you understand that the patriarchy is trying to make you dependent on its technology?" Lustrum asked.

"She just tweeted at me, said something about violence not being the answer and some men being good. Total bullshit of course, but whatev… shitty government drone ya know?"

Suddenly, Lustrum got an angry look again. Not like the one she used when talking about how men were pigs and cars were basically like lego bricks when you were as tall as she was right now, but still angry.

"Young lady, I'll have you know that Alexandria is a respectable women that did a lot for women's rights in this country. Even if she is ignorant of what must be done if we truly wish to change the world, you will treat her with respect," she said.

"Fine…" Zoe replied.

"So, what's this tweet thing?" Lustrum asked.

"Twitter, you know? Social media? The best way to reach the world with your message? We're trending globally you know, hashtag Feministfuture is doing great! Here, look, I'll show you how it works," Zoe said. She quickly snapped a selfie of herself with Lustrum's gigantic hardlight body in the background, and started typing her next tweet

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _Just hanging with the greatest teacher womynkind has ever known. #Lustrum #FeministFuture._

"So, Zoe, who is that message going to?" Lustrum asked.

"Well, let's see. There's all three-hundred-thousand of my followers, everyone following the Lustrum and FeministFuture hashtags, everyone following anyone who retweeted me, anyone that follows anyone that then retweeted that, and everyone who looks directly at my profile. Twitter is amazing for activism because it allows you to reach your audience without depending on old-fashioned patriarchical gatekeeping media!" she replied. She still remembered Victor's speech about the use of twitter for Neo-Nazi recruitment, and just had to swap a few words around to use it here. You know, exchange the word jew for the word man, that kind of stuff.

Lustrum, in the meantime, was absolutely furious. With anger on her face, the woman flicked one of her massive hardlight fingers in Zoe's face.

"I understand that you wish to spread word of the cause young Freya, but I will not allow the butchery of English that is the word 'Womyn' anywhere near one of these Octothorpes with my name attached to it. Do you understand?"

"Yes teacher," Freya answered. She didn't understand the problem, all the other online feminists were doing it, why wasn't she allowed to?

*** Can't freeze these damn blue shells. ***

"Seriously? Again? You're cheating somehow!" Kid Win yelled.

"Nah, just skilled." Clockblocker replied. I couldn't see his face behind the faceplate, but he was probably smirking.

"Getting blue shells is, like, the opposite of skill! You're not even racing, you're just sitting on top of the item boxes to get more blue shells to shoot me with!" Kid win yelled back

"Which takes a lot of skill!" Clockblocker said again, chuckling.

In the meantime, I overtook Kid Win's still accelerating kart, throwing him into the grass at the same time. Moments later, I finished, and three of the computer players had overtaken him before he was able to get back into the race.

"Well, looks like I won again," I said to my two protectors.

"It's not fair, Clockblocker's just targeting me with this stupid fu…uuuun comeback mechanism." Kid Win replied, stumbling over his sentence. I'd figured out like half an hour ago that they weren't supposed to curse or say anything rude while on the clock, which included this guard detail.

The two of them were in the safe-house with me, while a few PRT troopers had the surrounding area secured. Apparently, protocol said that I counted as a VIP here, being Lustrum's daughter and everything, and demanded I have two Protectorate or Wards members escorting me at all times, even in the safehouse. Tonight, the two of them would be swapped out for Assault and Battery, and tomorrow morning I would be joined by Vista and Gallant.

"Oh, turns out they didn't recruit Hellhound, well, that's good for us." Kid Win suddenly said, looking up from his phone, which he'd grabbed the moment he'd lost the race.

"How do you know that? You guys wearing earpieces right now?" I asked him.

"Well yeah, but that's not how we know. We know because Rune's been live-tweeting their escapades." Clockblocker said.

"Live-tweeting? Why… why hasn't she been caught yet?" I asked him. Why the fuck would anyone be live-tweeting their criminal escapades? That was so stupid that, well, that was so stupid I could see Uber and Leet doing it.

"Not sure, probably politics or something," Clockblocker said. "Thing is, she's got a lot of sympathizers around the country, and the director doesn't want them to come here and protest, especially since some of them are capes," he continued.

Well, that was interesting, even though I wasn't quite sure what it meant.

I thought about tonight. Would it be a good idea to sneak out, try to talk some sense into my mother? Sure, she was a dangerous supervillain working together with a live-tweeting rockslinging neo-Nazi sycophant, but she was still my mother…


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

*** All's fair in love and war and memes ***

Assault was chatting with Danny, and Battery was cooing over Aster in the baby room. Kayden had somehow managed to extract herself from the entire situation, leaving the PRT wondering where she was. Still, we could hardly leave Aster behind, so here she was. Battery seemed to like her, at least for now. That was the thing with babies, they were absolutely amazing, as long as you didn't have to spend more than three hours a week in their presence. That was roughly the point where the stench and the yelling and the endless need for attention got the better of you.

If it was up to me, I'd just get a four year old or something, or maybe a dog.

I grabbed the stress ball I'd found in my nightstand (PRT safehouses were very subtle) and used my strength to squeeze it, expending my lightwell. I'd turned my lights off, so I quickly managed to turn into a gaseous shadow, and floated out through the air filter.

Seconds later, I found myself on top of a building in the outskirts of Brockton Bay, not wearing a costume.

However, I had a solution. I took of my hoody and my shirt, then put the hoody back on inside out, and wrapped the shirt around my face like a bandana. It'd have to do, I didn't plan to spend a lot of time being seen tonight.

Disguise completed, I ran, jumping between the rooftops of the houses. There were enough streetlights to give me power and solidity, so I had built up quite a bit of speed.

Halfway to the city, I stopped to check my new phone, looking at this new twitter thing.

 **Freya** RadicalRune

 _Smashing buildings? More like smashing the Patriarchy! #Lustrum #FeministFuture isn't it weird that somehow all ABB capes are male #misogyny_

Attached to the tweet was a picture of Rune and my mother standing in front of the ruins of a building. I could just barely make out a broken sign saying " _Ruby Dreams"_ in the rubble.

Well, I had my target. Wondered what the whole ABB thing was about though.

"Sup Huntress, where'd your mask go?" a familiar voice called out.

I turned around, looking for the source, before spotting some hairs in front of me. I looked up, and spotted Crystal, hanging upside down in the air. She was wearing her costume, the formfitting spandex-like material hugging her body in all the right places. I was sure most boys would've been completely stunned when they looked at her. I wasn't. After all, I was straight.

"Was in a hurry… What are you doing here?" I asked her, realizing how much easier it was to talk to her in costume. Maybe it was because of the whole anonymity thing, her not thinking I was just some girl.

"Friend of mine was in the neighbourhood, probably bored out of her mind, thought I'd pay her a visit."

I knew it… she didn't really like me, not even as a friend. The moment I wasn't available to text her, she just went to some other girl who wasn't in a safehouse…

Unless… was I the friend she was referring to? Probably not, but still…

"Hey, I just remembered I don't have your number, can you give it to me? I'll put you in the group chat," Crystal said.

"Group chat?" I asked her.

"Well, it's basically just the wards, me, Eric, Amy and Vicky, Regent, Spitfire, Newter and Sveta. We use it to chat and send each other updates about cape stuff,"

"Wait, aren't like four of those people villains," I asked.

"Well yeah, but Regent makes amazing memes, and he won't post them if the others aren't included. Also, no-one gives a shit as long as you don't tell any adults."

"What… but… aren't you guys supposed to be enemies?"

"Yes? Also no? I mean, sure, we're enemies, but that doesn't mean we can't chat. Just… don't try dating them? I mean, Eric tried with Faultline once, and it really didn't work out," Crystal replied with a pained expression on her face.

"What do you mean it didn't work out?" I asked.

"Well, we were having this fight, them robbing some sort of security transport, half of new wave trying to stop them, and in the middle of some great banter, they suddenly start yelling at each other. I mean, seriously, cape fights are not the time to start complaining about putting the toilet seat up or down, people were watching! New Wave has an image to maintain!"

"Suuuuure," I said, not entirely sure of how to react.

"Anyway, I'm off to see this absolutely amazing girl, so, what's your number?" she asked.

I quickly rattled of my new phone number, before dashing ahead in the general direction of the safe-house, you know, so I'd be there in the case that Crystal was actually referring to me when she talked about an amazing girl. She hadn't been, but a girl could dream couldn't she?

*** The part in which Taylor realizes she's a fucking idiot ***

I made my way back into the safehouse, took of my inside-out hoody, put my shirt back on, and turned on the TV, when I heard Battery talking to someone at the entrance.

I opened the door of my room, and saw Crystal there, still in costume, a puzzled look on her face.

"Hey Taylor" she called out. I waved at her, and Battery looked at me questioningly, before letting Crystal through.

I motioned for her to come into my room, where we wouldn't have to deal with my father and Battery, or Aster's screaming for whatever it was that she wanted this time. Probably a new diaper to defile or something like that.

Once inside, Crystal looked at me suspiciously, and sat down on the chair in front of the desk.

"So, what's up?" she asked me.

"Nothing much, getting bored, waiting for this whole thing with Lustrum to be over…" I replied.

"Wanna hear a fun story?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

"Well, when I came over here, I spotted that new vigilante, Light-Huntress? Anyway, we started talking, and I eventually got her phone number. You know, so we could co-ordinate crime-fighting and stuff. Anyway, as it turned out, she gave me a wrong number, because as I typed it in, my phone just said that that number was yours! So, she probably either misspoke or just lied…" She looked at me, her normally dreamy eyes now as hard as those of a detective. "I mean, unless there's some other explanation for why you and her seem to have the same number…" she continued.

I stood there, stunned. I hadn't thought about that at all. I should've known, it'd been stupid, I just had a hard time thinking about stuff like that around Crystal…

Crystal waited for about a minute, waiting for an answer from me… I didn't… how was I going to handle this?

Eventually, she opened her mouth, ready to speak, probably saying she was disappointed in me, that she'd always known I was a loser or something like that.

So I did the only thing I could think of, and didn't give her a chance to utter a single word. Before she could make a sound, I dashed forwards, put my mouth on hers, and kissed her like I'd never kissed anyone before.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

*** A regular Freeman ***

"Hey Battery, do they put crowbars in these safehouses?" Ethan asked his wife.

"Why? You want to pretend to be fixing something again? You know what happened when you tried plumbing," she replied.

"As I've told you a million time before, it's called a water feature, and its classy," Ethan said, defending himself.

Danny started laughing, taking care not to wake up the baby at the same time.

Just a month ago, they'd stopped taking precautions. After spending several hours in the company of the screaming pile of terror that was called Aster, Ethan was very much rethinking that decision.

His wife however, had absolutely fallen in love with the little horror. Women…

"What do you need a crowbar for?" Danny asked.

"Can't figure out another way to pry those two apart," Ethan said, pointing at the half-open door behind which Taylor and Laserdream were exchanging saliva.

"So my little girl finally reached that stage? I've got to admit, I don't think threatening Laserdream with a shotgun would really work, so I'm kind of disappointed," Danny said.

Ethan laughed, imagining the mild-mannered nerd with a shotgun, a cowboy hat and a big ol stache.

"Yeah, you laugh. I'm just glad she's not dating a supervillain," the man said.

"I still don't get it, I mean, how does that even happen?" Battery asked.

"Well, I got suspicious once, early on, but then I told myself there's no way my beautiful, caring Annette could possibly be a crazy feminazi that wanted to kill all men. Because, you know, I'm a man," Danny replied.

"How'd you meet each other anyway?" Battery asked.

"One of my old buddies knew her from college, we met at a party, and we hit it off. Then, we spend like a week glued to each other," Danny replied.

"Figures… like father like daughter," Ethan said.

For the second time, he knocked on the half-open door. This time, Laserdream took a few seconds to actually pay some attention.

"I'm going on a snack run, you girls want anything?" he asked.

"Pizza?" Taylor asked. Looking at her, Ethan realized just how much she looked like her mother, especially her hair. How the fuck had no-one noticed in all those years?

"Oooh, and hot wings!" Crystal said.

"Hot wings?" Taylor asked her.

"Hot wings!" Crystal said.

"Fine… hot wings," Taylor said, giving in.

"Sure thing," Ethan replied, but once again, neither girl was capable of talking. At least they still had their clothes on.

*** Symbol of womanhood, also punching ***

Within a minute of her departure, Alexandria arrived in the skies above Brockton Bay.

Sure, this was technically outside of the plan, but Coil could suck a dick. In two timelines, at the same time. She wasn't going to let Lustrum run amok like this. She'd worked very hard to be the foremost image of female empowerment. To be someone that little girls could look up to, you know, as long as they didn't know about the whole shadow government human experimentation stuff. Now, a woman that was so fat, she had her own gravity well.

Within another minute or so, she'd spotted her first target. A teenage girl, she was crying and holding on to the bloody remains of her minion. A criminal and a murderer, someone who was a very good example of the problem with natural triggers. She looked down on the girl, seeing the tears in her eyes. Useless, not strong enough to make it as a solo villain, too emotionally damaged to join a team.

Then again, the girl's weakness would make her easy to manipulate.

She floated down and landed in a three-point landing. She had often seen her wards, practicing to mimic it. Hers however, was the real deal. In comparison to her landings, other landings were but pale imitations.

"Rachel Lindt, Hellhound," she stated.

The girl looked up from the dead canine, snarling. She was angry, didn't like the name others had given her, didn't like the fact that her dog was dead, didn't like being approached by heroes.

"Fuck off!" the girl yelled. Around her, the remaining dogs slowly started growing in size.

Quickly, Alexandria flew forward, grabbed the young villainess by the collar of her jacket and shirt, and flew into the sky.

Once they reached the first clouds, she stopped. Then, she spoke.

"Technically speaking, you're under arrest now. Murder with a parahuman ability, destruction of property, assault with a parahuman ability, the list goes on like that."

The girl just ignored her speech, and tried to scratch at her face while yelling obscenities… This was going to be difficult, wasn't it?"

She heard a strange pop behind her, and turned around. Eidolon had arrived.

"Lexy… give her to me, I checked, and she's not going to do what you want her to do. It's not how she works," He said, the LED's hidden in his costume glowing ominously.

"Really? You're a people person now?" she replied sarcastically. David knew that this was personal, that it was a woman thing.

"No, but I used to have a service dog. Loved my little buddy, and I'd like to repay him somehow."

Alexandria thought back. It was strange for David to talk about life before his trigger event. Had he precogged this conversation? Probably. And that would mean that, just like with Contessa, there was no point in arguing here. David wouldn't drop by if he wouldn't have won the argument.

She took better hold of the villainess, and threw her into David's hands. David caught her, upside down at first, and Alexandria started scanning the city again.

"Well then, let's take a look at those puppers of you shall we?" David said enthusiastically. At least the girl had stopped screaming.

*** When someone breaks all your new toys ***

Marquis was fuming with anger, as were at least two of his new subordinates. Lung wasn't very good at remembering he wasn't in charge anymore, but the man had loved his casino, so he could forgive him his anger.

Oni Lee was still dead, so he couldn't be angry.

Bakuda however, was absolutely livid, and shouted at her phone.

"So, just what exactly is this twitter thing?" he asked.

"It's just sending people a message. Except instead of beating up their loved ones, you put it on the internet for everyone to see," Lung said

"And anyone can do this?" Marquis asked.

"Yes," Lung replied.

"But why?" Marquis asked.

"I don't think anyone knows," Lung replied.

"Boss! New Boss! We need to kill this bitch! She said I was a man!" Bakuda yelled.

"What do you mean? That really doesn't sound like the Lustrum I know, unless you're transsexual. She hates those for some reason, had like daily slapfights with the other feminists in her block." Marquis replied.

"She said there were no women in the ABB!" Bakuda yelled.

"Well, that's true," Marquis replied. "You're part of the March now, the ABB is defunct."

"Yeah, but they don't know that!" Bakuda yelled back.

"I'm quite sure they also don't know about your existence…"Marquis replied calmly.

"Well, they should! I'm amazing! The best! I've got the best bombs, everybody says so, high energy, high explosives!" Bakuda yelled out.

"Later… later… First, we have to figure out why they are hitting our casinos," Marquis said.

In all likelihood, Lustrum wasn't actually looking to hurt him so much as she wanted to publicize. The more she was in the public eye, and the more people supported her, the harder it was for the Protectorate to move against her, and the more minions she would be able to gather. Pretty soon, the Nazis in Brockton Bay would be outnumbered by FemiNazis from around the country.

Sure, Lustrum had been send to the birdcage, but knowing the type of people that supported her, that just meant she'd have some civil rights activists on her side as well.

However he looked at it, Marquis knew he needed reinforcements if he was to succeed here. The ABB would not be enough. His daughter, of course, would be his first choice, but who else? It needed to be someone useful, preferably with a grudge against Lustrum's trans-exclusionary radical feminism. He grabbed the list again, filled with information that one of his new minions had gathered from this PHO place, and looked it through.

Ahh, yes, Grue and Circus would most certainly do. And given Lustrum's reaction to that changer that called herself an Otherkin, he had the feeling that Trainwreck would love to fight Lustrum as well.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**  
*** I did not have sexual relations with that helicopter! ***

Trainwreck soared through Brockton Bay's night sky, making his way towards the place mentioned in the message. Activating his electronic optical scanners, better known as the zoom function on his phone, he looked at the building.

Placed in the rich part of town, it looked like a haunted house. It was old, half-destroyed, and surrounded by tall grass and a large overgrown fence. It was the type of place where normal people would dare each other to spend a night, and then run away from once the guy with the chainsaw came out.

Sadly, most haunted houses did not have a helicopter hangar, so he would never know what that would actually feel like.

Trainwreck was what the PRT called a case 53. According to the PRT, he was a human that had lost his memories and had his body transformed when he had gotten powers, but he knew that was incorrect.

The problem with the PRT, and scientists studying parahumans in general, was the human part of the descriptor parahuman. For some reason, they assumed that only humans could be sentient and sapient, and that only humans could get powers, and that therefore only humans could be case 53's.

Trainwreck knew better than that. He knew, deep down, that in his previous life, the life he had lived before his memories had been taken and his body had mutated, he had been a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, serving in the Vietnam War.

Sometimes, people made fun of him for that. He could understand it. Nam had not been a popular war, and most Americans that had lived through it tried to forget it. To then be confronted with a forgotten weapon of war, thrown away and left to rot in a depot until it got powers… It was only logical that they disliked him.

Worse were the people who denied him, denied the idea that he had flown over the jungles of Vietnam, raining down fire and explosions on the communist insurgents, fighting for the country he had been built in. "But Trainwreck," they said, "You look far too young to have been in Nam, and how could you possible remember it when you lost all of your memories?"

It was a foolish endeaveor. After all, if he wasn't really an attack helicopter, deep down inside, then why did watching footage and movies from that period feel so right? How come he liked Wagner so much? How come he was fascinated by fire if it wasn't because he used to have flamethrowers? The trees and houses beneath him were nice, sure, but they were nothing compared to burning huts and running natives.

Luckily, not everyone was as ignorant as director Piggot and her Heliuscopterusphobic minions. Was that a word? Probably not, but the bigots at the dictionary publisher refused to create a word for them, no matter how many letters they got. On the internet however, people did accept him for who he knew himself to be, and he got the support he needed. He hadn't even had to steal too many parts to build himself his new body, as he got donations from his . Sure, he didn't actually do anything for them, but he was famous so everyone gave him money anyway.

The real problem on the internet were the fakers, the people that pretended to be like him, and wanted to steal attention away from him. Sure, he was a Case 53 helicopter in a semi-human steampowered helicopter body, but that made sense. Things like that happened all the time. But some of these idiots on the internet claimed to have the soul of a dog, or a unicorn, without having any of the powers or memory loss that came with being a Case 53! Even worse, some of thought they had been characters from a popular videogame in a previous life, from a different dimension where that videogame was real. It was absolutely ridiculous! Couldn't those idiots understand that telling a helicopter that you understood his suffering because you're a middle-schooler pretending to be a cartoon dog was really insensitive?

Trainwreck reached his destination, and floated above his target, the tall grass surrounding the manor house pointing away from him. He couldn't see any place to land, even though the invitation had said that they understood his plight.

Then, he saw a creaky old door open, and someone flicked out a small canister. He flew up and away from the canister, and it exploded into an orange liquid that quickly ate away at the tall grass, leaving a perfectly round, deforested patch on the ground.

Agent Orange, he immediately knew. Sure, in all the movies it was translucent or white-ish, but he knew better, he'd been in Nam, and this orange liquid could only be the real Agent Orange. It called to him, and he wanted it, wanted missile launchers filled with the stuff. Both to fight the communist insurgents, and to get rid of that tree outside his workshop that held all those fucking birds.

As soon as the Agent Orange had faded away (it staying in the environment for a long time was a liberal communist lie!), a white helicopter platform started growing in its place, made out of bonelike material.

So his guess had been correct, it was the Marquis that had invited him.

As he touched down on the ground, he deactivated his external rotors, and changed himself into a smaller, more mobile form. He was, in many ways, a transformer. Only instead of a robot hiding like a car, he was a helicopter that could become sort of robot-person-like when he wanted to.

In the darkness, he could see three people waiting for him. One, he recognized from the newspaper. Another, he also recognized from the newspaper. The third, he didn't recognize from the newspaper. Not because she was a girl, mind you, but because she was a lot less famous. Also, helicopters didn't have genders, so he couldn't actually be sexist. Even though sometimes he got all hot and bothered when looking at Dragon's stuff on the internet.

"Marquis? You're working with Lung?" Trainwreck asked.

"To be specific, Lung is working for me, as my lieutenant in charge of the Asian part of the city. A role very similar to the one I would have you fulfil, if you take me up on my offer," Marquis said, his voice smooth and bony. Or maybe that was just his reputation? What would a bony voice even sound like? Skeletons couldn't possibly talk except by magic, so there was no reason to assume that their voice wouldn't sound perfectly normal. Or maybe like Donald Duck, squeaky and annoying.

"I'm really more of an independent type. Regardless of how the bigots in city hall see me, I never intended to become a criminal," Trainwreck responded. "To have me join the organisation of someone that has been in the birdcage, and has a reputation for ruthlessly killing his opposition when necessary, well, I'm not sure about it."

Marquis moved closer, close enough to be clearly visible, his face illuminated by the moonlight. Or maybe by a streetlight pointing in the wrong direction, it was hard to tell.

He walked back and forth, pondering the issue for a while before talking.

"I can understand where you're coming from, but you must understand, I'm doing this for your protection. Lustrum will take down everyone that doesn't agree with her," he said.

Trainwreck thought about it, but he wasn't really afraid of Lustrum. After all, Lustrum just wanted to kill all men, and he wasn't a man, he was an attack helicopter. He really didn't want to get caught up in a fight between two birdcage escapees.

Sensing his hesitance, Marquis continued talking.

"Also, Bakuda here will provide you with incendiary missiles whenever you need them, the bette-"

"Okay I'll do it!" Trainwreck shouted. Finally, he would be complete!


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**  
*** Double 0 Darkness, secret agent of the Patriarchy ***

"So, to summarize, Lustrum is actually what is known as a TERF, or Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. That means that she believes that male-to-female transgendered people are secret agents of the patriarchy, there to infiltrate the ranks of womanhood and tear it down from within, instead of believing that they are actual women and have, you know, worth," Marquis explained.

For what must have been the fiftieth time that week, Grue sighed, and started explaining.

"Look, those dresses weren't for me, I don't want to wear them, I'm no transgender, transsexual, a crossdresser, genderfluid or anything else like that," he said, before turning to his new partner in crime, Circus, and quickly adding "Not that there's anything wrong with that kind of stuff."

"So, in other words, you're one hundred percent plain boring male?" Marquis asked.

"Yes I am."

"Well, in that case, Lustrum doesn't hate you because you're an undercover agent of the patriarchy pretending to be a woman, but instead because you're an overt agent of the patriarchy, destroying the planet with all your being-a-man stuff. In other words, you should still join us."

"So wait, let me get this straight. In order to stop Lustrum, who is trying to stop the patriarchy, a hypothetical conspiracy of men trying to oppress women, you have assembled a bunch of male supervillains in a conspiracy to take her down?" Circus asked him.

"What? No, that would be sexist. We also have you and Bakuda," he replied.

"It's gonna be fantastic! Marquis has great plans! The best plans!" Bakuda said at the mention of her name.

"Hmmm, I'm still not entirely convinced. Last thing I saw, Twitter was abuzz because Alexandria was in town, and I'm pretty sure she can handle it. Plus, it sounds like a bad idea to go out while a member of the Triumvirate is in town," Grue said.

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of something fallen down, followed by a quick curse and then silence.

"Trainwreck?" Marquis asked.

"Activating temperature scanners… I've got two life signs, smallish, behind that door there," the tinker said, holding what looked like Vietnam-era set of night-vision goggles in front of his eyes, obviously enhanced with tinker-tech.

"I'll check it out," Lung said, cracking his knuckles, the brute was obviously looking for a fight.

"No," Marquis replied. He held out his hand, and made a piece of bone grow through his skin, then broke it off and threw it at the door. Once it hit the wooden frame, it expanded, quickly growing in such a way as to destroy the frame, having the door fall into the room, and exposing the two girls lying on the other side of the door

"Hah, Agents of the liberal Matriarchy, here to take us by surprise! SAD!" Bakuda yelled, readying a grenade.

Grue looked at the two girls, and quickly recognized one of them as Glory Girl, Victoria Dallon, in civilian clothes. The other girl, by association, was probably her sister, Amelia. Or as she was better known, Panacea. The two had probably been listening at the doorpost, and fallen over, leading to Victoria lying on top of her smaller sister.

"Hold it Bakuda," Marquis said.

"Awwww," she said, dejectedly.

Victoria flew upwards, readying her fist in a boxing stance that was completely irrelevant to her level of combat, but looked cool and intimating. Grue could respect that, reputation was as important in heroism as it was in villainy. Her sister removed, Panacea only half sat up, and looked straight at Marquis.

Marquis, in return, looked her in the eyes, and Grue thought he could see a tear form in the corner of the man's eyes. Not that anyone would ever believe that, but whatever.

"It is you…" Panacea whispered.

"Amelia," Marquis replied.

"Dad."

"Daughter."

"Supervillain…"

"Healer."

"So, are we fighting or not?" Lung asked.

"Yeah, I'd kinda like to know that too Ames," Victoria said.

"No," Marquis replied.

"Don't think so," Amy said

"Awwww," Bakuda and Victoria said in chorus, both disappointed at the lack of gratuitous cape fighting. In the meantime, Marquis stepped forwards, and Amelia ran towards him, jumping into his extended arms.

*** High heels are hell on your bone structure ***

"So, going by Twitter, we're expecting at least fire different protest groups. The Women's Liberation Front, or WLF, The Front for the Liberation of Womynkind, or FLW, the March for Equality, or ME, and the Protestors Protest, or PeePee, and last and most certainly least, the NDL." Victoria said, having written the names of the four groups on an old blackboard that had been left in Marquis' old home.

"Nazi Defence League, basically a combination of the Klan and the Empire," she explained. "Anyway, the WLF is a group of feminists that is protesting both Lustrum's extreme activities, as well as her more problematic beliefs, especially regarding what happened to Bitch. They've spend the entire evening twittering at each other, and they presume that there will be about twenty-thousand people ready to go tomorrow, with more trickling in over the next few days. It seems like they're settling in for the long haul," she explained to her students, mostly supervillains.

"The FLW however, consists of a hard core of former Lustrum agents, as well as younger fans. They're staging a counter-protest in support of her, and their ranks likely contain superpowered reinforcements for Lustrum. Although they probably won't work directly under her, we can assume they're enemies of, well, basically everyone in this room, including me and Amy," Victoria continued.

"And they have almost exactly the same name because?" Grue asked.

"Because they're a bunch of idiots that don't understand Monty Python is satire?" she replied

"Anyway, the third group is holding a March for Equality. These peeps are a bunch of intersectionalists, and their whole deal is protesting both the WLF and the FLW because they believe those groups don't properly take into account the intersectional nature of oppression. Of all the groups involved, they're probably the least retarded, except for the part where they're in total support of your buddy Trainwreck over there," she explained.

"Hey, what's wrong with supporting me?" Trainwreck yelled out.

"Well, for starter, you're a supervillain," she answered.

"So's your mom,"

"No, so's YOUR mom,"

"He never knew his mother, that's really insensitive of you," Marquis said from his position on an old couch, sitting right next to Amy.

"Pffft, I don't even have a mother, I have the Army Corps of Engineers," Trainwreck said.

"Okay, first of all, that's not even what the Corps of Engineers does, second of all, fuck it, I'm skipping to the next topic.

"So, next is the Protester Protest, which is a group of people that share the belief that today's society protests too much, and who are protesting against all the protests going on. Both those in the city, and across the country. Yes, it's stupid, no I don't know why the fuck they're doing that," Victoria explained, trying not to pay too much attention to the idiotic Case 53 in the corner.

"And then, there's the Nazis. Basically the Empire Eighty-Eight, with maybe some of their old friends also involved. Partially a counter-protest against the March for Equality's counter-protest against the FLW and the WLF, and partially just an old-fashioned Klan rally. They probably won't be too much of a problem, as absolutely everyone else hates them, and no-one will mind if they get caught up in a cape-fight," Victoria finished.

"So, what's the plan?" she asked.

"I must admit, the large amount of protestors does complicate my plans somewhat," Marquis answered. "But, I have a plan. With the help of my daughter, we'll go undercover in the FLW, get close to their leadership, and hopefully Lustrum, and take her down in a decapitating strike. That done, we leave everything else to the Protectorate and the police, and make sure the protests aren't as devastating as the DWU's shenanigans back in the day."

"Look, she just said the FLW is into hardcore female supremacy, and not in the hot way. How the hell are we going Undercover?" Grue asked.

"Like I said, with the help of my daughter," Marquis replied, motioning towards Panacea.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**  
*** Something completely different ***

Colin looked through the settings on his nano-workbench, and decided to change the temperature settings. Lower temperatures would decrease the fluidity of the particles he was working with, but the reduction in Brownian motion would allow him greater control anyways.

He really wanted to complete his current project, a nano-thorn generator, in time for the chaos that would be coming tomorrow morning. The eyes of the nation were on Brockton Bay, and people would start questioning his leadership if the Triumvirate stole the show. With some luck, the nano-thorns would help him deal with Marquis' bone shields and Lustrum's hardlight body. Lung's flames would be a problem, the nano-thorns were weak against high energy environments, but he had a set of brute-tranquilizers for that problem.

He'd just have to work through the night, and then to stay awake all day tomorrow. Maybe he could catch a few powernaps in between fights, spread out his focus over the day.

Behind him, he heard the seal on the lab entrance break, followed by the sounds of the slow airflow created by the slight over-pressurization.

He turned around, and saw his daughter there. She was red-eyed, her hair was dishevelled, and she wasn't wearing the light make-up she usually wore. That, and her pyjamas, told him that Lisa had been trying, and failing, to sleep.

"Hey kiddo, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Lisa lied, and they both knew it.

He walked over to her, and put a hand on her shoulder that he hoped would be reassuring. She calmed down a little when he came close, but when he looked at her face he still saw a tremendous amount of fear there. She hadn't been in such a state for quite a while now, not since the beginning.

"I can see there's something wrong Lisa. You can tell me, I promise I won't get angry."

Instead of being reassured, his daughter's expression of fear just got worse.

"It's nothing dad, just couldn't sleep," she said. Colin took another step forward, and enveloped her in a hug that she returned. That was good, meant it didn't have anything to do with him. But that just asked the question, what had her so worked up?

The most obvious answer was that her power had helped her figure something out. Maybe something that was classified as top-secret, or a dangerous conspiracy. He was quite sure that it didn't have anything to do with any of his own secrets. For one, he didn't have any except for Dragon's actual identity, which Lisa obviously figured out almost directly after the two of them had been introduced to each other. Secondly, she still trusted him.

So not only was it something highly confidential, it was also knowledge defended by someone that, Lisa thought, he couldn't protect her from.

That, in addition to Alexandria and Eidolon's sudden appearance in the city, could only mean one thing.

The Triumvirate had something to hide, and they were probably willing to kill to keep it a secret.

And little Lisa had figured out the secret, and had also figured out that they would kill her for it. She'd even been too afraid to tell her father, all because she didn't want the triumvirate to know that she knew.

"It's allright Lisa, no-one's going to hurt you here. Not Pitter, not Coil, and no-one else either, you understand? They'll have to go through me first."

That only made her hug him more tightly, which confirmed his suspicions. Alexandria was one of the few people that he was quite sure he couldn't protect her from, and the woman just might be coming after her.

"You want to sleep in the lab tonight? I still have the big couch here somewhere, and I'll be right by your side the entire night."

Lisa nodded, and made a little affirmative noise.

Just like the old days indeed.

*** The viper's nest ***

Lisa looked from one perfectly white tiled wall to the other, and back again, trying desperately to keep her eyes away from the unspeakably bright lamp in the ceiling. A soft hum of shitty background music kept her from listening too closely, kept the rest of the building closed off to her senses.

Not that she would be able to figure out anything, given how much her migraine hurt.

And that was the problem. It was almost morning, probably, and in the morning he would ask her questions. Not her though, but in the other world. Then the other her wouldn't be able to answer, and Pitter would come here and punish her.

Not physically, or, at least, not by beating her. No, he'd just tell her that she wouldn't get her dose today, after which he'd just stand there, and she'd know he was thinking dirty thoughts about her while she was writhing in agony.

She needed her dose, and she hated that she needed it, and she hated that she knew that he knew she knew.

She hated him, she hated him so much and there was nothing she could do. But what she really hated, was that she knew she was too afraid to do anything if she could.

Because if the tried to do anything, if she tried to escape, it would turn out that she'd been in the other world all along.

She thought she heard footsteps outside, and shifted slightly on her mattress, trying to properly triangulate. Not hearing anything else through the muzak, she concluded that it must have been a hallucination, or maybe Coil was punishing her by making her think she was hallucinating. Or maybe, or maybe…

She started to feel cold, and her body and power started telling her that she was going to need another dose, that she was going to start shivering, and feeling that urgent need. She just wanted her stuff, wanted the pain and the headaches to stop.

And they weren't going to, because he was punishing her, because he loved looking through that little camera of his and seeing her suffering. Because she couldn't tell him what he wanted to know because she's spend the entire night asking her power questions, asking how bad it would be when he punished her for not being able to answer his questions because she's been spending her power herself.

She heard another set of footsteps, this one hurried and louder. Another hallucination? One of Coil's tricks?

Suddenly, the light started flickering, and this time she knew it was a test. That Coil was testing her loyalty, that if she tried something, then she would suddenly be in the other world.

The lights turned off, and the music turned off. Had someone cut the power lines?

The pounding migraine was joined by the distant sound of gunfire, metal on metal. It was a trick, it had to be, he was tricking her and she wouldn't fall for it. She'd just stay here, on her mattress, and then maybe Coil would give her this morning's dose. He would be happy, and he always said she should try to make him happy if she wanted to be happy working for him.

The sound of gunfire came closer, and she heard boots frantically running over metal walkways. Then, she heard lightning, fists pounding on metal and tearing through it, that sort of thing.

Fake sounds from a tape of a cape fight, she thought.

Real sounds from a cape fight, her power told her, the message joined by another increase in the pounding in her head.

At least it was dark now, so she didn't need to close her eyes.

She heard an even closer sound. One of a deadbolt being removed, and keys in a keyhole.

She opened her eyes, and looked in the direction of the door, unable to see anything in the complete darkness of her room.

The door opened, and she saw a dim outline of a person in the frame, lit by the emergency lighting that had been installed in the rest of the base.

Pitter, she recognized. He looked panicked, and instead of a needle filled with her dose, he was holding a gun.

Had she fucked up? No, she hadn't, right? Was this a scare tactic? Another test?

Pitter walked forward, right towards her. He was panicky and afraid, and her power told her the expression was real. What did that mean? Had Coil threatened him in order to threaten her?

"Stand up," he commanded, all the while picking her up and dragging her with him. Lisa didn't resist, and she knew that it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The drugs, the lack of exercise, the lacklustre food and the fact that she was a teenage girl meant that he could easily overpower her, no matter what she tried.

He held her to him like a hostage, with a gun to her head. Was it a fake hostage situation? Something complicated Coil had set up to test her loyalty?

She breathed through her nose, and smelled gunpowder. The gun had been fired quite a few times, and her power told her that Pitter had reloaded it badly. One or two more shots, and it would jam. Was that the test? Did Coil want her to tell him?

Guided by Pitter's lecherous hands, the two of them made their way through a base that she only half-recognized in the darkness, from the few trips out of her room she'd been allowed to make, mostly to the bathroom or the med-bay.

Suddenly, she flinched as one of the walls started lighting up, red hot with head. Then, the head of a poleaxe suddenly tore through the wall, followed by an armored figure in blue and silver.

Pitter panicked, removed his gun from Lisa's head, and fired at Armsmaster, who was wearing a modified helmet that protected his entire head.

The bullets pinged off, and when Pitter figured out it wasn't working, he held the gun to Lisa's head again.

"Let me go or I'll shoot her!" he yelled out.

"Let the girl go, and I'll arrest you instead of ending you," Armsmaster replied.

"I mean it, I'll shoot!" Pitter said.

"We both know you don't want to do that, put down the gun," Armsmaster said, taking a few steps back.

Lisa set her power to work, trying to get it to activate through the massive migraine.

 _Gun fired four times since last reload, improperly taken care of, Pitter didn't change plans, he just knew he couldn't shoot anymore, he's bluffing, and it's jammed._ Her power told her.

"It's jammed," Lisa said, the sound just barely making its way through her dry mouth.

Armsmaster reacted by readying his Halberd, firing the grappling hook, but it was too late. Her power had been wrong, and Pitter still had a single shot left.

She didn't hear the gunshot, and it didn't hurt, it just felt warm on the side of her face.

Lisa opened her eyes, and saw her father standing in front of her, a hand held to her face.

"Nightmare?" Colin asked.

She nodded, and her dad handed her a glass of water.

In reality, unlike in the nightmare, the gun had jammed, and Armsmaster's grappling hook had torn through Pitter's head like it was nothing. Then, Colin had used the enhanced movement of his suit to dash forwards, and caught her before she could fall down with Pitter's newly headless body on top of her.

As it turned out, the Protectorate had somehow gotten its hands on information about two possible Coil bases, and had only had the resources to attack one of them at the same time. Choosing which base to attack had been a matter of a coin flip, and Coil had probably chosen the timeline in which the base he was in was safe.

It sucked that the man had made his escape, and was back in the shadows again, but Lisa hadn't really cared. She'd been here, safely in Colin's laboratory, protected by an ocean, a forcefield, several squads of PRT troopers, the extra security on the Tinker lab, Colin himself, and the ever watchful eye of Dragon. For the first time in months, she'd felt safe from Coil's grasp.

Back then, she'd been plagued by nightmares and pain from the migraines, the drug withdrawal, and the memories of Pitter and Coil. Now, the only thing she had to deal with was the knowledge that Alexandria was a murdering psychopath that turned innocent people into mutants and erased their memories, the fact that Lexy was in the city, and the fact that Cauldron would do absolutely anything to keep their operations a secret. But her new dad was here to protect her, so everything would be all right. Plus, tomorrow she could play Lesbian matchmaker between supervillains and tell everyone that it was an important Protectorate operation.

She looked at her father, who was installing a piece of hyperlethal nanotechnology in his new polearm, and fell back asleep, knowing that he would fuck up anyone that would try to mess with her. 


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

*** Tall Dark and Sexy ***

"Pfwhahahahaha," was probably the best approximation for the sound coming out of Aisha while she was rolling around on the floor.

Brianna groaned, and tried to stand up again, quickly falling over before she could take a single step.

"C'mon, it's not that hard," Jesse said, her superhuman balance helping her walk on the torture machines.

"You literally have superhuman balance and reflexes, stop laughing!" Brianna told her. "How the fuck do people walk in these things?"

"Very carefully," she replied.

"So, is Panacea still around?" Aisha asked, trying to say the words in between bouts of laughter.

"We'll meet up tonight to turn back, if everything goes according to plan, why are you asking?" Brianna replied.

"Well, I've been looking at your new rack, and quite frankly, I'm jealous!" Aisha said.

"I have to agree, it's quite impressive," Jesse added in.

"Well, I'm glad you're both enjoying my new booty," Brianna said. "Now where's my mirror?"

"Awww, my big sis wants a mirror, you want privacy to go with that?"

"Shut up."

"I must say, these clothes are pretty cool, where'd you get all these dresses?" Jesse asked.

"Just… let's just go all right."

*** Assuming Direct Control ***

Almost everyone in the protest was carrying a sign, saying things like "stop hate now," or "Equality must come from all sides."

They were, of course, all losers, because Alec knew that he quite obviously had the best sign.

 _'_ _Haha see this is why real protests are amazing, you can actually use more than 140 characters, I mean, seriously, do you really believe you can create social change with short bite-sized statements instead of with rational, well-argued thesii?'_

The best part, of course, was all the hot protesting college chicks in yoga pants coming up in order to try to read the tiny letters on the sign.

The problem, of course, was that his girlfriend was currently looking over his shoulder, literally, and a hyperlethal mass of lightning-quick, ridiculously agile tentacles chased off most women. Most, but not all. Garrotte had an army of protest-signs, mostly based around the idea that fighting against body-shaming would eventually also stop people from giving Case 53's strange looks. Alec didn't think it was going to work, but Sveta was really enthusiastic about it, and the torrent of chemicals it released in her brain also made him happy.

For about a year now, he'd been using his power almost every waking moment. Unlike when he'd been with his father, he wasn't doing it maliciously. His girlfriend, Sveta, was a Case 53 that didn't have perfect control over her body, and her long slender agile tentacles. Luckily, he had the ability to take control of peoples bodies, hijacking their nervous system. And unlike Sveta, he did have perfect control over her body.

Over the year, they'd worked out a system. He'd stay away from Sveta's face, and didn't interfere when she was slowly, with control, moving her tentacles around. On the other hand, when in battle, he would assume total control of the whirling mass of death, and quickly take out most of their enemies from a distance, imprisoning them within her tentacles in a way that she would not have been able to do without killing them.

He looked around, trying to spot the rest of his team. He spotted Spitfire and Faultline, hiding as civilians, first. They were melding into the crowd, shouting about stuff every now and then, and keeping an eye out for the Protectorate, seeing as Sveta, Newter and Gregor were the type of people to easily attract attention. Then again, they had an uneasy peace, mostly because "Protectorate bigots arrest peaceful protesters for belonging to hated minority group," was a bad headline. And hey, the only thing wrong in the headline was that _supervillain_ probably didn't count as a real minority group.

Together, the two of them marched on, with Sveta yelling random protest phrases, and people around him praising him for being so diverse as to have a Case 53 on his shoulders.

He spotted someone else coming towards him, a thirty-something Latina woman with long black hair, that he was pretty sure wasn't looking at the sign, but at him. Looking at him intently.

"Sorry lady, you're a bit too old for a threesome, not interested," he said pre-emptively. Either he'd dodge a bullet, or he'd get a hilarious facial expression, both counted as a success.

"Oh, too bad, I've always wanted to date a Vasil," the woman replied.

"Well, my dad's not into milfs either, but you could try Cherish, she'll do anything," Regent continued, not missing a beat.

"Haha, very funny. Where's your boss?" the woman asked.

"This time of day? Probably the strip club, removing what little clothing those ladies are wearing," he replied, as his boss snuck up behind the lady, striking at her back with a Taser.

The Taser, of course, did absolutely nothing, but hey, it wasn't his fault they were going to lose, so he had that going for him.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

*** So there's, like, fifty different types of feminism ***

"So you want to hire us, so that you can fight us, so that you can prove once and for all that you're a better feminist than Lustrum?" Faultline asked.

"Faultline, you are famed for your intelligence. I really expected you to understand this. I mean, it's not a difficult plan," Alexandria replied.

"See, the fact that you don't understand why I don't understand is the reason you're such a bad feminist. You can't just go out and burn your bra these days you know. I mean, that's sexist. After all, feminism is for all women, and burning bras for feminism means that you're saying all women have bras they need to burn, even though people without boobs can also be women. In addition tot that, the important thing here is intersectionality. You can't fight for women's rights just by fighting for women's rights, because the oppression that women face intersects with the oppression that other groups face. If you think women are oppressed by societies need for them to look attractive, then you should take a look at Case 53s. Thus, by improving the situation for Case 53s, we improve society for everyone."

"But Lustrum doesn't care about any of that! She's transexclusionary second wave!" Alexandria protested.

"Well, yes, but she's also a villain, which means that she fights the establishment. To her supporters, the birdcage is the epitome of the patriarchy. It symbolizes how women's bodies are put into cages if they do not conform to societal standards."

"Half the inmates are male though," Spitfire remarked.

"And they are male, therefore evil, therefore they belong in prison. That's how they think," Faultline said.

"So how do I become the world's best feminist?" Alexandria asked. "I mean, I have a supernaturally powerful mind, but it doesn't seem to be any help here!"

"Well, first of all, you have to realize that feminism is not a monolith. It's not that you're not as popular as Lustrum, it's that her people are much more devoted. In addition to that, their feminism is incompatible with mine, which is why I'm here protesting against them.

"Now you're Latin-American, which is a plus here, it means that you are located in the intersection of womanhood, the Latin-American struggle, and parahumanhood. Now you have to find what unique perspective that gives you, and used it to draw attention to your struggles."

"But if I start identifying myself as Latin-American and a parahuman, instead of just a woman, then how will young girls look up to me?"

"Look, I know this might hurt, but being a good role-model to young women across the country just won't do it anymore. It's about representation instead. They shouldn't look up to you, they should look at you and see themselves instead. You are nothing but a vessel for their imagination."

"But they don't even have superpowers! How is that supposed to work? This doesn't make any sense!"

"Look, this is obviously a bit too advanced to start out with. How about we start with the easiest part, Garotte can help you out."

"Sure thing!" Sveta replied while Regent was lazily making her tentacles perform rude gestures.

"So, how do we start?" Alexandria asked.

"Well, first of all, you need to be much more active on Twitter. I mean, you're Alexandria of all people and Rune has at least five times your followers."

"I see, yes. Then, I shall go out and force all of my underlings to subscribe to my twat," she replied.

"What? No, of course not. I mean, that's only like a thousand people or so right? Adding up the Protectorate and the Wards."

Rebecca thought about her options. On one hand, she could reveal her other identity, that of the director of the PRT. Sure, the parahumans in the protectorate wouldn't be enough, but if you added up everyone tangentially related to the PRT, then that would put her above twitter's most famous femi-Nazi. On the other hand, that could completely destroy her reputation, as well as Cauldron's plans to stave off the end of the world. But if it got her more twitter followers...

"Now there's lots of ways to get more followers. You can live-tweet the protests, you can link to interesting articles, you can even use your reputation to spout off boring platitudes and have people pretend that it's all deep and intelligent.

"But, that's not what we're going to do," the tentacle girl said, her limbs now suddenly at attention. Apparently, Regent thought they'd be getting to the good part right about now, and was paying attention.

"Instead, we're going to get you followers from the greatest source of internet points. Pointless drama."

*** Fire and Shadow ***

"Downu withu Patriarchu!" Lungette said with her ridiculously offensive accent. Sure, her English wasn't perfect, but it wasn't that bad, was it?

"Kill all men! Kill all men!" Grue-ina added in.

"No taxation without representation!" Aisha added in.

"No, no no! I mean, yes, that was a revolution, but not the one these people are protesting for. Seriously, have you not paid any attention in school?" Glory Girl asked.

"I'm protesting with a bunch of gender-bent supervillains and our lady of collateral damage, what do you think?" she asked.

"Just… Remind me, who are you again?"

"I'm Grue's sister, duhh. Seriously, pay some attention."

"And you are here why?"

"To see the fireworks, live-tweet it, and get them sweet sweet followers. Duhh."

"Just stay in the back okay? I mean, these guys aren't going to keep you safe."

"Oh please, like Lustrum's going to go after a poor oppressed black girl, I'm safe as a something that's really safe."

"Lustrum's second wave you know. That means she's really racist. I think. Though maybe that's just because she doesn't care about the issue or something? I mean, it depends on who you're ask and it can all get really confusing. All I know is that she's a supervillain, bad enough to have to go to the birdcage."

"Blah blah danger blah blah blah. I know, I know, you just do your thing, and I'll be here getting more popular than Rune!"

"Actually, I think it's Freya now," Glory Girl replied.

"Who gives a shit? I mean, she should've gone with an unpronounceable symbol. Then she could be known as the Villain formerly known as Rune, or tvfkar. No, wait, that doesn't work doesn't it?"

"Nope, it very much doesn't," Vicky said. "Anyway, you should stand back, I think the guys just spotted her." Vicky said, as Grue-ina and Lungette made their way through the crowds, sneaking up on their target.

Then, Darkness exploded through the crowd, and Lung started roaring, feminine scales appearing on her smooth skin, the daintiest little wings erupting from her back, just barely avoiding her backless dress.

There was a whole lot of yelling, even more people making videos, and an Aisha live-tweeting the confrontation.

It was over as fast as it began, and the darkness receded within half a minute, only to show a sexy dragon in half-torn clothes sitting on top of her opponent.

Marquesse made her way through the crowd, and looked at Lungette and Grue-ina disapprovingly.

"Look girls, when I said that Lustrum is a large lady, I meant that in the sense that she is supernaturally so. The lady you just caught? I'm pretty sure she's just rather fat." 


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

***League of extraordinary Gentlewomen, and a helicopter.***

Gilbert Lavere groaned, and looked at the rag-tag bunch of idiots he had assembled. On the surface, they seemed highly capable. He had a cape that had managed to survive on his own for two years, and was able to take away the senses of everyone in a wide range using his Shaker ability. Sadly, the young man was also utterly incapable of actually planning ahead, having decided that making money through villainy was more likely to allow him to help his sister than becoming an actual government-sponsored superhero.

Standing next to that was one of the most powerful capes the world had ever seen, a man who transformed into a literal Dragon, able to go toe to toe with an Endbringer, as long as he had the time to scale up. A man -now a woman- who had singlehandedly taken territory in Brockton Bay, with only the slightest amount of help from a deranged ninja. A kindred soul, although Gilbert had to admit to himself that he'd never gotten his hands on a ninja. Problem was, of course, that Lung was not the brightest of bulbs in the box, having somehow convinced himself that all of Asia was basically the same country, a form of racism that was usually limited to 17th century European politicians.

Then there was the Tinker, capable of creating high-tech steam-powered assault vehicles with a box of scraps, in a different world, he could've been a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. In this world, he'd convinced himself he'd been a helicopter in a previous life.

Then there was the other Tinker, Bakuda, a psychotic aerospace engineering drop-out that had convinced herself that she was absolutely the bomb. In a reasonable city, she would've gone too far roughly two weeks after her debut, and subsequently have been cleaned up by an alliance consisting of everyone in the city. In Brockton Bay… she's probably end up as the mayor somehow.

Then there was Circus, another low-level criminal, one with access to a pocket dimension, fire-control, and some sort of low-level combat-Thinker power. A grab-bag if he'd ever met her, or him. The issue was confusing, and Gilbert had to admit that he had absolutely no idea of how to handle it correctly. He sighed, was this what the Marche had become? Then again, he was pretty sure that his team was better than what Lustrum was working with, especially because he had an actually capable team member.

Glory Girl, Victoria Dallon, the memetic queen of collateral damage. She reminded him of all his fights against female capes. The New Wave ladies, Iron Rain, the Butcher, and an endless array of other up-and-comers, trying to prove their worth against someone they knew wouldn't actually hurt them. Except, of course, that with Victoria, he couldn't actually flirt during a confrontation, because she was his daughter's sister, and that was just all kinds of wrong.

"So, what did we learn today?" He asked his assembled team.

"That you Americans are way too fat!" Lung said with conviction.

"Not to trust Lung when he says he found the enemy," Grue retorted.

"Look, what happened today was a complicated situation," Bakuda said. "You had a group on one side that attacked the wrong target, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. No-one wants to say it, but you had some very bad people on both sides of that protest!"

Marquis looked at her, anger barely hidden from his face. "You attacked a random woman, just because you were all too lazy to look up a picture of an internationally renowned supervillain!"

"Look, all I'm saying is, mistakes were made on both sides, both sides!" Bakuda said.

"No, I'm pretty sure our side did all the punching," Circus admitted.

"Only because we were stronger than our enemy," Lung said, "It is not our fault that they were weak. Had they been stronger, the world would have seen that they were the true vilains."

"Yeah, gotta agree with you there, it's not our fault you guys are weak," a new voice spoke up. Young and feminine, and high, both in tone and origin. He looked up, and spotted Rune, now Freya, standing on top of a large flying chunk of concrete, surrounded by two floating trucks.

Lung was the first to react, using his pyrokinetic abilities to launch a stream of fire at the girl. Circus joined in, adding her flames to his.

"No you simpletons!" Marquis yelled out, but it was too late. Freya, spotting the fire coming her way, dropped one of the trucks. As fast as he could, he created a barrier of bones, but he could only shield half of his party before the flames impacted against Rune's fuel truck.

For an instant, he thought things would be okay, the metal barrier around the truck holding back the flames.

Then the truck hit the ground, broke open, and created a fireball in the small alleyway the'd been gathered in.

***Queen of all capes.***

Zoe had to admit, she hadn't expected this kind of effect when she'd brought over the fuel truck.

It had been easy, simple almost. Bring something ridiculously flammable, and you made sure that neither Lung, who apparently had breasts now, and Circus couldn't use their pyromancy, and that Bakuda would be too afraid to set of any of her explosives.

After all, who would be stupid enough to create fire in the presence of six wheels of burning death?

Men, of course. Men would be stupid enough to do that. As were, she had to admit, women. Why couldn't her opponents' idiocy be more consistent with her new ideology.

Looking down on the fiery carnage, she smelled something burnt, and checked her costume, before quickly dropping the burning cloak down. Great, she'd only had that for a few days.

Below her, she saw that Marquis had managed to shield his party from most of the blast, and that Glory Girl had shielded her sister.

She whipped out her phone, sending a quick message to her boss that she'd found the enemy. Sure, she was supposed to have done that before taking some time to say hello to them, but who cared these days? It wasn't like any of them were dangerous. Sure, Marquis had been a cellblock leader in the birdcage, but that just meant that he'd gotten caught, like a loser.

She tried desperately not to think about the fact that Lustrum had also gotten caught, and decided to drop the second truck before flying away, leaving the burning alleyway behind her. Her boss would probably be able to find it quite easily, just by tracking the smoke! Mission accomplished.

Of course, given the quickly approaching woman in black, it was pretty sure that other people would also be able to find it.

Alexandria came to a halt, floating before her in mid-air. Her cape flapped behind her majestically, and her fierce scowl seemed like it could cut with just a look.

"Sup?" Freya asked.

"You're under arrest," Alexandria replied, flying forward. Zoe tried to dodge, dropping a bit on her rock, but she was too slow, and within half a second, Alexandria's hand was clenched around Zoe's throat, the shock of it making her drop her phone in panic.

Strangely soft, she thought, chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Lexy asked.

"You're not as hard as I expected."

"Really? You've been caught and that's what you decide to do? Make jokes?"

Zoe nodded, flicking out her spare phone. If only she could get a selfy of her being captured by one of the most famous capes in the world, she'd get even more followers!

"Just smile for the camera," she said, forcing the words out of her mouth with great difficulty as she traced her symbol on the back of her phone. It was an older model flip-phone that her old boss had provided to her, one that meant she wouldn't be unmasked the moment a teacher confiscated her phone.

The joke, of course, was on Kaiser, cause she just used her second phone in case Quinlan confiscated the first again. Which reminded her that she'd need to get a second back-up phone one of these days.

Alexandria looked at her skeptically, before her eye went for Zoe's phone. Then, as she was about to say something, Zoe applied her power, making the phone fly straight into Alexandria's half-open mouth.

"Hah, got you!" she yelled, as she could see the fear in the heroine's eyes.

Or, well, she would've seen the fear, had Alexandria not been wearing a helmet.

Alexandria dropped her back on the rock, knowing she'd been defeated, and Zoe smiled at the scene.

Just two days in Lustrum's organisation, and she'd taken down Alexandria! Being a radical feminist was showing itself to be far superior to being a Nazi.

"Now Lexy, you're going to do exactly what I want you to do, or I'm going to move that phone further down your throat and choke you, understand?"

Alexandria nodded, and Zoe smiled. Finally, they'd be able to reach their goals, whatever those were. Right, equality between the sexes, which… why were they fighting Alexandria again? Well, Lustrum could probably explain all those problems away, she was good at making the world make sense.


	31. Chapter 31

*** What do you mean, Achilles beat Penthesilea? ***

"I wub you," Taylor said.

"I wub you more," Crystal replied.

"Nu-uh, I wub you more," Taylor continued, kissing her girlfriend. She had a girlfriend!

"Hot wing?" Crystal asked.

"Why did you want hot wings?"

"I like hot wings," she said, standing up from the bed and putting one in her mouth, then spitting out the bones several seconds later. It wasn't exactly elegant, but somehow it was still pretty hot.

Was that why they were called hot wings? It certainly wasn't because they were still heated.

"So, the adults have been quiet for a while," Tayor remarked,"

"Too quiet," Crystal said.

"Do you wanna go see what they're up to, or…" she asked.

"Are you crazy? That's how people die in movies!"

"They also die if they just stay in their room kissing all night," Taylor said. "Frankly, I'm pretty sure that kissing is far worse than checking out the strange quiet."

"True," Crystal admitted, pouting. Taylor thought it was awfully cute, and gave her another kiss on the lips, pulling away before they got stuck in another half-hour making out session.

Then, she walked into the living room of the safehouse, where she found Assault and Battery hugging each other, laying on the couch, with several empty bottles of wine on the table and the TV set to mute. Taylor went to the window, and looked behind the blackout curtain, spotting the sun in position above the city. How long had they been kissing? Sure, they'd made out for a while, watched a movie, fallen asleep during the movie, watched the movie again but kissed during all the scenes they'd already seen, then fallen asleep five minutes after they'd caught back up to where they'd been, given up and watched a different movie.

Yeah, it probably had been that long.

"Oh shit, I missed a few calls," Crystal said.

"Important ones?" Taylor asked.

"My aunt, so no," she explained. "But still, team stuff."

"You go check it? I'll look for my dad," Taylor said, looking through rooms of the safehouse, searching for her oldmanno. Sadly, while Crystal was talking with her aunt on the phone, and Assault was loudly snoring, Danny was nowhere to be found.

Combine that with the bottles of wine on the table, and she could only reach one conclusion. Her father had snuck out, and was now outside somewhere, looking for mom. For Lustrum.

Her mother, the supervillain, she couldn't really belief it, although it did give context to some of the stories she'd been read as a child. Apparently, Helena had launched a thousand ships, not destroyed them singlehandedly. Also, the less said about her mother's interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, the better.

"T? We've got a problem of sorts," Crystal said, appearing in the door opening, phone still in her hand.

"I know, I can't find dad," Taylor said.

"It get's worse," Crystal said. "Apparently, Rune somehow captured Alexandria, and is using her as an attack dog against Amy's dad."

"Amy's father?" she asked.

"Marquis, old school villain," Crystal explained. "My aunt's got a big old hate-on for him."

"You know, I'd act surprised, but given my own mother… seems like just about everyone in town is descendent from a supervillain."

"It gets worse," Crystal said, her face all serious all of a sudden.

"What now?" Taylor asked.

"Well, turns out that Kaiser, the leader of the Empire?"

"Yeah? What about him?"

"Well, I have inside sources telling me he's Allfather's son!" Crystal revealed.

Taylor groaned. "Seriously? I thought you were going to tell me he was also involved in this."

"Nah, I think they're mostly sitting this one out, except for normal protesting," Crystal said.

"Well, that's a relief," Taylor said. "There's so much happening at once in this city, I've kinda lost track."

"Well, if you've got a whole lot of problems, you gotta do what my father always says."

"Which is?"

"Focus on one of them so you have an excuse for bailing on the others," Crystal explained. "It's really effective, cause there's very little a teacher can do when your excuse is that you were punching Nazis."

"Right. First problem first. My dad, he's missing, I think he's off to see mom."

"What's he gonna do when he meets her?" Crystal asked. "Kiss? Kill?"

"Probably just some inept shouting about the ferry," she admitted. "He has a thing about that."

"Well, finding your dad, and therefore also your mom, is as good a goal as any," Crystal said, walking up to the windowsill.

"You coming? Or do you want to change into some sort of costume first?"

"Be right there," Taylor answered, sprinting past the sleeping heroes, into her temporary bedroom.

*** The more racist they are, the harder they… ***

Max Anders was having a bad day. Not only had two of his father's greatest opponents escaped the birdcage, but now one of them had recruited one of his capes, and infected the rest of his gang with her ideology. Nessa and Jessica were complaining that they were only being hired for their looks, and Melody kept insisting that at least fifty percent of cage-fighters and animals should be female, even when it was quite literally called a cockfighting.

And now, his ex-wife was knocking on his office door. Worse, he'd known she come calling, which was the entire reason he was in on a Saturday.

"Kayden, long time no see," he said, a small smile on his face. He'd known she'd come back to him. He'd always known. Kayden was weak, and needed guidance, something a dockworker just couldn't provide.

"Max…" the young woman said, grimacing.

"You want something. Something that I have," Max said.

"Lustrum," Kayden said.

"What about her?" Max asked.

"She's after my boyfriend," she said.

Max groaned internally. Of course, her boyfriend. Annoying. It was far easier to manipulate people if they thought they loved you.

"So?" he asked. "It's a free country, isn't it?"

"Cut the shit," Kayden said, obviously frustrated. "I need your help to put that skank back where she belongs, how much will it cost me?"

Max put his arms on his desk, touching his fingers together, and trying to look mysterious. "No," he said.

"Well, you better know that I'm not going to kill anyone for you," Kayden replied, obviously not expecting the negative answer.

"I said, no," Max said. "We get mixed up in this? Every newspaper in the country will publish something about Nazis and feminazis, and most of it will come out in favor of Lustrum. No, we're sitting this one out, letting everyone else weaken themselves."

"You're a coward," Kayden said.

"I'm just being logical about it," Kaiser replied. "This entire gang-war is a race to the bottom of the barrel, and I'm the only one being realistic about the fact that no-one is going to achieve anything when Alexandria is flying around."

"So what? You're just going to leave me hanging because you're some sort of race-realist? Not because you're just too much of a pussy to stand up to Lustrum and Marquis?"

"Exactly," Max said, a fake smile on his face. Truth was, Marquis freaked him out, what with him having a better version of Max's power. After all, no matter how many times he tried, he'd never been able to create functional wings.

"Yeah, right," Kayden said, walking past him, then lighting up. What was that all about? Nonetheless, he reacted by forming armor around himself, knowing that it was useless if she actually decided to attack him here and now.

Kayden blasted the window open, then stepped out into the air, positively glowing with energy, quite literally.

"Saturday huh? Probably not that many people in the office," Kayden said.

"Most of them are out protesting, on one side or the other," Max said, turning around and looking out of the broken window, seeing a plume of smoke in the distance.

"You know, Danny and I have been watching a lot of movies lately," Kayden said, looking at him, then staring down to the ground, far beneath them.

"And yet you never watched any with me," Max replied.

"You only wanted to watch American History X, and you didn't even get the point," Kayden exclaimed.

"It's not like we ever paid attention to the movie," Max said, remembering the sweet nights they'd spend together on the couch, pretending to be watching.

"Well, I was just wondering," Kayden said, slowly floating backwards, further away from the building. "You ever watch Fight Club?"

"That the movie Stormtiger keeps going on about? No, can't say I have," Kaiser replied. "Why do you ask?"

"There's this scene near the end of the movie, it's been giving me some ideas," Purity said. "See, the thing is, you're a horrible person. You've added nothing to this city, Aster is a point of light in my life only despite your existence, and I can't even use your gang to help me get my boyfriend back."

"Yes, it's almost like we don't exist solely to serve your slightest whims," Kaiser replied.

"So… I guess this is it," Purity said. "Everyone's busy with the protests, so I guess it'll be a while until people find out."

"Find out what?" Kaiser asked.

"This," Purity said, letting loose a lance of light. Max defended himself, placing a large metal barrier between him and his ex-wife, but she hadn't been aiming at him.

She'd been aiming at the base of the building. 


	32. Chapter 32

***Staying above it all. Literally at least, most definitely not figuratively.***

Taylor was pretty sure that flight wasn't supposed to be part of her powers. In fact, what she could usually do was a lot closer to hovering. Even worse, the constant absorption of sunlight meant that she couldn't even fly when it wasn't the middle of the night.

Of course, in some situations, not being able to fly was actually a positive thing, and today, Taylor found herself in exactly such a situation. Flying high above Brockton Bay, Crystal, or rather, Laserdream, held her in a bridal carry.

"So, where are we starting our search?" the girl asked her.

"Well, my dad's probably trying to find Lustrum, but I have no idea where she is, and I don't know where my dad thinks she is either," Taylor said.

"Yeah, that does make it harder," Crystal agreed. "I mean, trust me from experience, finding supervillains isn't that easy. I mean, it's not like there's some big massive unmissable signal giving away their position."

"I mean yeah, nothing is that simple," Taylor sighed, watching as, in the distance, the Medhall building came crashing down in a waterfall of dust and debris.

"…"

"…"

"… That just happened," Crystal said.

"… Should we check it out?"

"Probably smart to do," she agreed. "Who knows, maybe it's your mom!"

"Maybe," Taylor replied.

***

"So, what's new?" Crystal asked. "You found out they sell cancer meds to Mexico as well?"

"That's ridiculous," Purity answered, hovering before them. "Not only do I not care, Mexicans wouldn't even be able to pay for that stuff."

"Racist," Crystal said.

"Racist," the prettiest girl on the planet chimed in.

"Jinx!" Crystal said.

"I mean, it wasn't really at the same time, you were faster cause, you know, you're so smart."

"No, you're smart," she replied.

"No, you're the smart one!"

"Awww, but you are," she said, floating down a bit to give her a kiss.

"You're the one looking so amazing in that outfit of yours," Taylor said.

"So, we're going to fight, or…" Purity asked them, still flying, blazing with light.

"I mean, we were kind of looking for some other supervillain," Crystal explained.

"I'm not a supervillain! I'm a vigilante! Have been for years!"

"So you blew up a hospital?"

"I… In what way is Medhall a Hospital?"

"Well, it's not, but 'so you blew up the perfect image of what's wrong with modern biomedical technological developments' doesn't roll of the tongue as well," Crystal said, trying to remember her cousin's many rants on the subject.

"Speaking of rolling off the tongue…" Light-Huntress said. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"The news?" Crystal suggested. "Sweetie, this is Purity? The famous presumably ex-Nazi supervillain gone vigilante?"

"No, it's not that," Taylor said. "It's something else."

"Pretty certain we haven't met young lady," Purity said.  
"You sure? Cause I remember your voice from something," Taylor said, getting agitated behind her costume. "Oh right, now I remember where I know you from. I know you from that time you got fucked by my dad!"

"Wait what?" Crystal turned, looking at the girl. "This is Lustrum?"

"No honey, because as it turned out, my dad has a thing for supervillains," she said before turning back to Purity. "I thought you were Miss Militia!"

"And I though you had an abusive boyfriend!" Purity yelled back.

"You have a boyfriend?" Crystal asked, feeling hurt.

"She's talking about Grue," Taylor explained.

"Well, you can do better."

"I did do better! I got you!" Taylor said.

"Taylor…" Purity said.

"Kayden," Taylor said, turning back to her father's fling.

"Why aren't you in the safe house?"

"Because I've got Crystal? Oh, and because dad left?"

"Where'd he go?"  
"The fuck should we know?"

*** Fuck men, literally in this one specific case.***

"And that is why all men are scum, testosterone should be outlawed, Marie Curie is a gender traitor, and political lesbianism is the only morally righteous sexuality!" Annette shouted, basking in the cheering of the crowd. "The Protectorate, or should I say Patriarchorate, will be gunning for us, but we will persevere!"

Once more, the crowd cheered and Annette smiled. She'd missed this. Sure, she'd had her cellblock, but half of those simply pretended for protection.

She turned around, seeing one of her old lieutenants trying to get her attention. Egalite moved her hands in one of the old signals.

"Everybody chant with me! Men are Pigs, Men are Pigs!" she shouted, and the crowd picked up the chant as she slipped away.

"Who are we dealing with?" she asked as she reached her old comrade in arms.

"Don't know, some guy thinking he's important," she said.

"Powers?"

"Not that we can tell," she answered.

"Bring me to him," Annette said, following behind her minion.

Two streets later, hidden in an abandoned house, she found the man, chained to a radiator and surrounded by two of her girls with machineguns. Useful to have, even though the fact that they had them spoke volumes about the nation's problems with gun control. Patriarchy's fault, of course, same as that whole Mayan calendar business.

"You can leave now, I'll handle this pig," she commanded, momentarily using her powers to impress them, and assure them that she was in no danger here.

"Yes ma'am!" they shouted back, before stepping out of the chamber. Ex-army probably. Well, at least they weren't calling her Sir.

She slowly walked towards the man, grabbing him by his tie and lifting him up against the wall.

"Danny," she stated.

"Annette," he replied.

There were so many things she wanted to say, so much she wanted to do, but she couldn't bring herself to utter the words. Instead, she kissed him like she hadn't kissed him in years. Which, she hadn't, depending on the interpretation of that particular turn of phrase.


	33. Chapter 33

*** Do you know how hard it is to write exciting fight scenes with someone that's literally invulnerable? ***

"I missed you," Annette said.

"Not as much as I missed you," Danny replied.

Annette sighed, taking a mental step back. "So I'd heard."

"You're talking about Kayden," Danny said.

"Kayden, luvvywubby, Purity, call her what you want," Annette told him.

"Wait, Purity?" Danny asked.

"You didn't know?

"Of course I didn't! I wouldn't date someone with a violent ideology that denied the humanity of large swathes of the population!"

"Well, you'll be happy to hear she swore it off," Annette told him. "My people told me she blew up the Medhall building which, given statistics on education? Mostly white."

"Wait, she blew up a building? And Medhall? Her ex worked there!" Danny said, exasperated, still not used to living with capes.

"I know right? You go girl!" Annette cheered, as someone knocked on the door behind her.

"Give me a minute to clean up!" she shouted as Freya kicked open the door.

"Hey boss, guess what I did!" the girl said, completely ignoring the half-naked chained up man in the room.

"You interrupted me in the middle of something important!" Lustrum replied, her voice angry.

"Well, yeah, that too, but check this out!" the girl said before changing to a tone more appropriate for talking to puppies. "C'mere Lexy, be a good girl and obey!"

At that, Alexandria, with something stuck in her mouth, entered the room.

"Zoe, what did you do?" she asked as she heard Danny gasp in surprise.

"I caught Alexandria! It was pretty touch and go in there, but I managed to launch my phone into her wide open mouth, and now she has to do what I say or I'll shove it down even further!"

Annette went silent for a second. Freya, beating Alexandria of all people? The physical evidence spoke for itself but… This was ridiculous! This didn't make any sense! This was…

"Zoe," Annette said, taking the time to carefully enunciate every single word of her sentence. "Did you get a lobotomy while you were gone? Did all that energy drink rot your brain, or are you just an absolute mooncalf!"

Zoe looked at her, mouth open and agape, until someone else spoke up.

"Mooncalf? That's a pretty classic one," Alexandria said, having quickly spat out the phone with the use of her enhanced strength and invulnerability.

Zoe turned around to her former captive, eyes filled with fear.

"But… but I captured you…"

"… you stuffed a phone in my mouth. Did you really think you'd be able to do that without it being part of my plan?"

"But I won, that's not fair!"

Alexandria ignored the girl, flying straight past her as Lustrum applied her power, momentarily taking out everyone in the vicinity.

It didn't matter, because even though her hardlight body was now dense enough to have its own field of gravity, Alexandria flew straight on, chocking her out with a hand around the neck.

"You know," the woman said, as Annette started feeling the blood in her head. "Faultline told me to win over the people, to get on social media and steal them away from you through a popularity contest. Thing is? I'm actually a moral person, and I'm not going to drop down to your level to win over these people. So I'm going to pick you up, then I'm going to fly straight back to the birdcage, and if you die of exposure during the flight, then, well. Then I guess I don't care."

Annette swallowed the lump in her throat. One hour. One hour with Danny was all she would get.

Well, everything taken into account, still worth it.

She tried her power again, taking energy from everything and everyone around her, momentarily disabling them as she grew in size and strength, her enlarged neck no longer small enough for Alexandria to choke, but not enough to allow her to stand a chance against the strongest woman in the world.

Alexandria smashed her against the wall, the impact putting incredible strain on her neck as she felt herself start losing consciousness. She tried to kick at her attacker, but the woman was simply too powerful. Why had she sent away her people again? Where was Egalite when you needed her?

She opened her mouth, not to scream, but to bite down, catching Alexandria's finger in between her teeth.

After hearing the most excruciatingly painful sound imaginable, she could only think about the bill Teacher would give her to fix all this.

She almost wanted to cry when she saw Danny standing up, the radiator no longer attached to the crumbled wall she'd been smashed against. Still chained to it, he was carrying it above his head, and brought it down on Alexandria's head as he approached.

Alexandria, being invulnerable, completely ignored the impact.

Annette saw her eyesight stopping, strange white dust covering her field of vision, slowly growing into weird structures. Two seconds later, a flood of sunlight entered the room, as a small red hot Dragon smashed through the wall, followed by a man in bone armor.

***Lizard versus Lighthouse. Lighthouse wins. ***

The ever-growing dragon smashed into his opponent again, every part of the building around them covered in flames. A bone cover hid the escape path into the sewer system that Marquis had taken, and everything else was either burning or ruined.

Alexandria however, didn't give a shit, being largely invulnerable. She flew away, visibly gasped for air, and then dove back in.

Lung unleashed a stream of fire, setting her costume ablaze, but it was like she didn't even feel it, flying straight through the fire, into Lung's open mouth, and out of the back of his head.

The impact stung, momentarily dropping Lung down, but his core, and the parts of him that thought, were no longer located in his head. So, while his eyes no longer send him information, he was aware enough to start flailing around wildly, buying himself time to start regenerating while blasting fire everywhere. Presumably, Alexandria was afraid of either the heat reaching her lungs, or of the lack of oxygen created by the flames.

Another impact. This time, it felt like some fort of vehicle thrown at him. He roared, the sound distorted by the quickly regenerating hole in his throat, launching flames into the sky. He felt his nerves connect. Not just to his eyes, but to new limbs extending from his back. Soon, he would be able to chase down his opponent, and this time, he just might be able to win against an invulnerable, unkillable monster.

His eyes opened again, and he spotted her, a flaming pinprick in the sky, hovering there at a city block's distance.

He returned to being bipedal, and grasped hold of the nearest building, climbing up it even as it crumbled below his weight. Then, standing on top of yet another now-ruined building, he dashed forward, cutting straight over buildings to reach his target, and building speed to take to the skies.

Alexandria came down, using her own body as an invincible projectile to smash into him, the both of them crashing through the building he was standing on them. He roared, engulfing himself in a fireball as he felt the woman tearing his wings off of his back. Ten seconds later, she retreated again, leaving him a ragged bleeding mess in the middle of what had once been in office building.

Still growing, he felt his wings start regenerating again, and climbed his way outside of the building, launching fireballs at the flying woman. Most of them missed, dropping down a mile or so away, but some of them smashed into her, making it harder for her to breathe.

Then, he took off into the sky, flying straight at the woman, a continuous jet of flames flying in her direction from his mouth.

Once he was properly away from the ground, a smile spread over Alexandria's molten-metal covered face, and she flew straight at him.

This time, instead of piercing him like a bullet, she impacted him with her whole body, pushing him away, towards the ocean.

He roared, engulfing the two of them in flames, but Alexandria kept accelerating them towards the Atlantic ocean. Quickly, the new England coastline gave way to open sea, with only a few ships in the distance, taking a wide berth around Brockton in order to get to Boston instead.

After about a minute, Alexandria relieved the pressure, flying away from him to take a breather. He flew at her, but she was simply too fast to catch, and quickly returned to her former course of action, bashing him further away from the coast.

Eventually, she let up again, floating about fifty meters away from him.

"Yhrouh Kquwhart" he roared.

"Coward? Me? I'm not the one too afraid of Leviathan to even contemplate fighting him," she told him. "That said, I'll be leaving you now. And, given your powers, I don't think we'll meet again."

Lung roared, flying at the woman, but she quickly disappeared into the sky, flying into a cloud.

The fight was over, his opponent had left him in the middle of the sea, and he felt his power leaving him.


	34. Chapter 34

***Anyone even remember this plot-thread? I sure didn't.***

"Well, that was a mess," Victoria said, sipping a rainbow colored liquid in what was supposed to be a coffee cup.

"You mean the Birdcage breakout, the whole thing with the new shadow stalker, the massive protests all over the city, the part where we turned Marquis's new gang into a bunch of sexy ladies, the part where Rune bombed us with burning trucks, or the part where someone just tore down the Medhall building?" Amy asked her sister.

"All of it?" Vicky suggested, shrugging.

"Yeah, guess that's true," Amy admitted.

Meeting her father hadn't been anything like she'd expected it to be. The man was intense, action-driven, and a supervillain through and through.

In a way, it reassured her that she was absolutely nothing like him. Nurture over nature, perhaps.

"Hey, Dallons!" A voice called out, and Amy turned in surprise.

Nostradame and Gallant, in full costume, were waving at them down the street.

"Gallant!" Vicky yelled out, launching herself forwards in their direction, flying straight at her boyfriend like nothing had happened. Amy followed, trotting along like she always did, eyes on the ground, and envious of the emotion-manipulating asshole that had stolen her sister away from her.

She was taken by surprise as a hand moved her costume's hood down, and then in one movement cupped the back of her head, a thin layer of cloth separating their skin. Looking up in surprise, she barely had the time to notice that Nostradame had removed her mask before the freckled blonde pressed her lips against Amy's.

Taken almost completely by surprise, Amy felt her power explore the girl's body, from the perfect hip-to-waist ratio to the needle-scars on her arm. She was stressed out, tired, and had a head-splitting head-ache. Power-induced and in the brain, so there was nothing Amy could do about it except for feeling sorry for the girl.

In the meantime, Nostradame was taking advantage of her surprise to try and get in some tongue on tongue action.

Why the hell was she doing this!? Wouldn't her power mean she knew better? That it was Vicky she wanted, and not some random Thinker that spend her time hiding behind her father's powered armor.

Except Vicky was with Gallant, and even if they broke up, she'd never think of her sister as a viable dating partner. She was going to spend her entire life pining after someone she would never be able to get, never finding herself an actual partner. It was safe, in a way, but it was also kind of cowardly. There was an beautiful, intelligent girl trying to kiss her right now, and she was going to ignore that in favor of something she would never be able to get.

 _Damnit_ she thought as she gave in to Nostradame's kiss. Had Nostradame planned her entire internal dialogue? Was she that good? Did it even matter?

Amy kissed, relishing the physical contact, which for once was far removed from the atmosphere of sterile hospital rooms.

Then, out of breath, she took a step back, still in the blonde's embrace, but with some distance between them.

"Lisa," the girl said with a sly smile on her face.

"Amy, but you already knew that," she replied, leaning back against Lisa's arms.

Was she really doing this? Kissing a girl she barely knew and starting a relationship? This really wasn't her. Then again, being her hadn't exactly worked out well over the years.

"You know, this worked out better than I expected!" Lisa chippered.

"… What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"That kiss? Mostly cause of a promise I made to your cousin," Lisa admitted, her green eyes staring straight at Amy's heart. "Given the results though-" Amy interrupted her. With her mouth, but not exactly with words.

*** Maybe I should learn to write romance that's not just two people kissing all the time and being sickly sweet to each other, but why change a winning team? ***

Vicky retched again, the projectile vomit assisted by the fact that she was floating.

"Really honey? You of all people?" Dean asked her, Gallant as ever in his armor.

"Look, it's just… They barely know each other!"

"Trust me, it's been five minutes. Nostradame knows everything she needs to know about Amy, and your sister's had plenty of time to inspect her in return," Gallant said.

"Still though… All the kissing sounds, it's just nauseating," Vicky said.

"Trust me, I've heard that complaint about a thousand times by now. It's just… Aegis never vomits."

"Well, girls have delicate sensibilities!" Vicky protested.

"Shadow Stalker didn't," Gallant said.

"I said delicate Gallant, that disqualifies her automatically!"

"Well, Nostradame doesn't… No, wait, she makes sure to be somewhere else whenever you drop by. I'm guessing she actually does get disgusted by people kissing."

Two dozen feet away, Amy and Lisa took a short break, all so that Lisa could shout at them: "Do you know how many germs you two keep exchanging? Because I do! It's why I picked an anti-septic girlfriend!"

"I'm… I'm not your girlfriend," Amy protested.

"Girl, we've been hugging and kissing for about an hour now, and I bet you didn't even notice the part where Alexandria and Lung had a city-block destroying fight."

"They destroyed a city-block?" Amy said, completely exasperated.

"More than just the one," Lisa said. "But it's alright, Lexy brought some of her people over to make sure no-one got caught up the chaos. Trust me, you don't have to get worried, it's handled."

"Okay…" Amy said, visibly relieved.

"Also, is that your cuz flying over there?"

Gallant looked where Lisa was pointing, spotting two flying capes, one of them carrying a third cape. Laserdream, Lighthuntress and… Purity?

The three of them landed nearby, Crystal dropping her new girlfriend on the ground.

"Lisa? Why the fuck are you hugging Panacea?" Lighthuntress asked.

"Long story short? Shadow Stalker has a shitty sense of humor," Lisa replied. "Also, no names in front of the Nazi."

"Wait… how's that work?" Gallant asked.

"Stalker's girlfriend does a thing, she feels the trigger, Dragon stops homeschooling me, her mom escapes prison, she needs something to cheer her up, you're already dating Vicky and I'm not inflicting Clocky on her, Eric's too old, Grue was already pretending to date his sister as some sort of weird cover story, Cryst didn't want to go to the library and I've been busy shitting my brains out now that Thinker 9 that doesn't understand how architecture works is in town. So yeah, this was the earliest moment I could get started."

"Nos… I know you think you're explaining, but…"

"Nah, actually pretty clear," Vicky answered. "Except for the architecture part."

"Library of, but then she has a lighthouse on her chest? Seriously that's just pandering to the lowest common denominator."

"You know, now that you say that…" Gallant said, thinking about the problem. That… yeah that made no fucking sense at all. Was she double-dipping or something? Trying to refer to both at once?

"So, anyway, now that we're all here, I know what we should do!" Lisa said.

"You… you don't even know why we're here!" Purity said, feeling the odd one out with all of her being a responsible adult.

"Of course I do ya dummy. You're here to find mister Hebert, either to yell at him or to get into his pants."

"Well, I never!" Purity responded, acting all insulted.

"Of course not, I bet you always do it with the light's off little miss flashlight," Lisa snapped back. "I'm not stupid okay, I can tell when people blow up a building just to get their boytoy back."

"Can we get back to finding my dad?" Huntress asked.

"Sure," Lisa said, ignoring the flashlight almost instantly. "Close your nose though, I'm pretty sure he's in the sewers with his wife."


	35. Chapter 35

*****A Taylor, a Crystal, a Kayden, a Lisa, a Amy and a Vicky walk into an underground bar. Dean's also there I guess?*****

Tracking down her father through the sewer system had been a shitty idea, Taylor thought.

Not because of the obvious joke, but because Brockton Bay was a modern city with a modern sewer system that you couldn't just walk through. That kind of shit only happened in shitty cartoons that had very little to do with reality.

So, instead, they were moving through old smuggling tunnels from back in the prohibition days. Same effect, slightly more realistic.

"So, how do you know where we have to go?" Taylor asked.

"Thinker powers," Nostradame replied. "Also, most of these hallways are actually dead ends."

Taylor looked around, checking the ancient architecture. The tunnels were mostly brick, with some wood, and filled with graffiti both old and new. One wall said 'Mayor Christner is literally Hitler!' while another said 'Hitler is literally King George!' A third wall had a few cave paintings, but those were obviously fake, giving that one of them was a man throwing spears at an armored man on a motor cycle, and the part where they were painted on a brick wall.

"Awfully convenient," Crystal remarked.

"I know right?" the girl agreed. "I mean sure, Thinker headaches hit me at the most inconvenient moment possible, but the rest of it? Pure awesome!"

"Speaking of Thinker powers," their walking flashlight said, "which way now?"

"Hold on, lemme Thinker for a second," Nostradame replied, looking around, then taking out her phone and opening up a GPS app.

"That's… that's cheating!" Taylor yelled out.

"Hey, not my fault no-one else downloaded the 'Historical underground of Brockton Bay' app!"

"Can't believe you're actually getting signal here…" Amy remarked.

"Tinkertech," the girl smirked with a grin that reminded Taylor of some sort of forest animal she couldn't quite place. Perhaps an angry badger?

"Hold up gals," Dean spoke out, easily recognized by his possession of actual testosterone. "I can see an emotional signature ahead."

"What kind of emotion?" Nostradame asked.

"Mostly anger, I think," Gallant said. "But it's one of those broody types of anger, the really pathetic type that prefers limb biscuits to Linkin Park."

"Do… do you kids even remember Linkin Park?" Purity asked.

"Duhh, it's my dad's favorite band," Vicky replied.

"I feel old…"

"Anyway, I think he's waiting for us," Dean said, "so let's see who it is."

Taylor walked forward, power at the ready as she turned the corner, spotting an ancient prohibition-era bar, half-forgotten and covered in shadows. Moving clouds of darkness drifted through the room, weaving between ancient bottles of whine and an antique beertap, the wooden panels of the floor broken up by wear, tear, and rot.

"It's her again!" Taylor shouted in anger.

"Really Huntress?" Panacea replied. "You're still not sick of that stuff?"

"It's a running joke!" she replied. "The constant repetition is what makes it even funnier!"

"Yeah but, it's just kind of mean-spirited now…" Vicky said.

"But she actually looks like a lady now! Panacea even helped her go undercover as a girl and shit!"

"Oh, right, so if a guy steals women's clothes you're perfectly okay with calling him a lady, but if someone in a woman's body tells you she's actually a he, that's when you suddenly draw a line?" Grue-ette asked.

"I guess?" Taylor replied. "I mean, this is all getting really complicated, and you're my archrival, so I basically do whatever bothers you most? It's more about that than about any politics on my part."

"That's… reassuring? Not reassuring? Just… what?" Grue asked.

"Look, can we just skip all this stuff and fight?" Taylor replied, circumventing the rest of the conversation by slinging a blast of light at Grue.

He moved his hands, launching a curtain of shadows, covering the elaborate scenery in a blanket of utter darkness. Taylor's attack struck the mists, the two opposing forces annihilating each other as they met. Through the quickly fading gap in the mist, she saw Grue running away, and knew that she really only had one option. To run after him.

She dashed forwards, darkness lapping at her body while she gave chase through half-darkened tunnels. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Nostradme call out something to the tune of "Watch out, there's a booooo-" but she ignored it. During the chase, she quickly grabbed her phone, she turned its torch on and stuck it beneath her shirt, a constant source of light to feed on, counteracting the worst effects of Grue's darkness.

Eventually, her mad dash through the tunnels brought her to another room. One half set with carpet and a small barrier, like you'd see in a museum. The other containing a boxing ring, as well as a few wooden stands.

Grue was standing in the middle of the ring, holding two tattered pairs of boxing gloves.

"The hell is this place?" Taylor asked.

"Old prohibition era illegal boxing ring," Grue replied. "Only reason my dad ever took me on the underground tour. Anyway, I could flood this room right now, leave you in excruciating pain, then beat you up."

"No you couldn't, I'd beat you," she replied.

"Really not the point. Anyway, I'm not a killer, and like Shadow Stalker, I have a feeling you're just going to keep coming after me, so how about this. No powers, no tricks, just a one on one boxing match. I win, you drop this stupid vendetta of yours. You win, you got me locked up. Deal?"

"Deal," Taylor replied, jumping into the ring, and accepting the pair of gloves Grue threw at her, connected by the laces. Putting them on, she got ready in a fighting stance. She was tall, but her enemy, though now female, was taller still, and had much more experience in combat. Luckily, she had an ace up her sleeve.

"Let's go," Grue said, feet moving in an intricate pattern as she danced forwards, when Taylor stepped towards him with a massive haymaker. Grue evaded effortlessly, leaning back away from her fist, but didn't expect what should have been very obvious to him as a bolt of light smashed through his helmet, knocking him to the floor.

Had he really expected her to play fair here?

XXX

Darkness, followed by a quick blast of light, followed by disorientation.

"Where the hell are we?" Glory Girl asked, as the darkness around them dissipated, showing a confused Amy, an all-knowing Nostradame, and a large warehouse with massive windows, large tables, and lots of drugs. And also a supervillain.

"Seriously? I lose a teleportation bomb, and I get a bunch of teenage girls? This has been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever!" an angry Bakuda yelled, launching a grenade out of a launcher.

"Block it!" Nostradame yelled out, and as Vicky saw Amy and her new girlfriend quickly overturn a table and hide behind it. She flew forward, catching the grenade in midair as it exploded.

For just a second, her shield turned off, then on again.  
"Damnit. That bomb was way too weak. Low Energy, sad!" Bakuda yelled, grabbing two orbs from a nearby table filled with them, putting one in her launcher, then throwing the next one.

"Dodge then smash!" the other blonde yelled out, and Vicky obeyed the annoying little sister-stealer. The first grenade didn't even come near her, much like her teammates passes back on the basketball team. The second, quickly coming out of the launcher while the first was still in the air, she dunked into the floor as she soared through the air.

The first grenade exploded, then exploded again, and again, and again. The second, upon smashing into the floor, turned the concrete into putty.

"That all?" Vicky asked, looking Bakuda in the goggles.

"I bet if you had a tv-show, your ratings would be bad!" Bakuda yelled, throwing another grenade, aiming not at Vicky, but at her compatriots hidden behind the overturned furniture

Nostradame yelled out in frustration, ducking through the room as Vicky took the opening and rushed Bakuda.

Just before impact however, she was thrown back in a storm of lightning out of nowhere, crashing into a row of tables before coming to a stop against the wall of the building, white powder that was probably cocaine floating through the air around her.

"You know how we already have landmines and sea mines?" Bakuda asked. "Well, I invented something new, I call them space-mines! Because they're at a specific place in space!"

"You're really annoying, you know that right?" Vicky said, wiping a small trail of blood from her mouth as she stood up, her forcefield coming back in a rush.

"I have the best catchphrases, better than anyone else's catchphrases," Bakuda replied.

"Well, I have my own," Vicky said, floating back up into mid-air, then propelling herself forwards. "Gloryyyyyyyy smaaaaaa-"

She didn't complete her sentence, because her little sister had finally made her way through the room, taking Bakuda out with a fire extinguisher to the head.

"Y'know, for drug-dealing gangsters, these guys are awfully good at investing in fire safety!"

XXX

Purity launched twin beams of energy straight at the asshole's smugly smiling face. He'd reformed his bone structure, turning him mostly male again despite Panacea's attention, and he dodged the attack.

The two beams flew onwards, disappearing into the city far below them, ending in plumes of dust as Purity gave chase after the flying bonemaster.

She couldn't let up, couldn't give him a chance to recuperate. Not after she'd caught him by surprise after suddenly being teleported right behind him. Marquis was too powerful, too dangerous. According to Max, the man had been a tyrant back in the day, and a decade in the Birdcage had only honed his skills.

The man turned in mid-air, shearing off part of his wings with a swipe of a bone blade that then crashed down to Purity's level. A quarter second later, they'd already started growing large spikes on all sides, caltrops in midair.

Purity flew around them, far faster than the maneuverable hummingbird, and launched a quick beam of energy at him that he dodged by shifting to the side. It shattered one of the man's wings, but nothing more, and the wing was quickly regrown.

Regrowing the wing again, however, had forced him to stop flying for a second or two, giving Purity the high ground again. She launched a dozen smaller bolts, forcing the man to focus on evasion rather than regaining his height advantage as she gave chase.

Marquis shifted something in his stance, his wings reshaping into something more hawk-like as he dove down, using gravity moreso than flapping to give him speed.

Kayden readied a sustained beam of energy that traced just behind the man, her aim slightly too slow to catch up with the man, impacting only the buildings beneath him until he finally disappeared between two towers.

She gave chase, speeding after him with single-minded determination. She had destroyed the Empire, she could destroy the Marche.

Weaving in between the towers, she saw shattered glass falling to the ground beneath, and spotted the man's dropped wings in the building ahead of her.

Was this how he wanted to play it? By forcing her inside, into his territory? Did he underestimate her determination?

Bracing herself in midair, she aimed the beams of energy downward at an angle. She couldn't give Marquis time to escape, so she aimed at the core of the building, all the way on the first floor. If she remembered her discovery channel, that was where the main support structure would be, and where it was under the most strain.

Several seconds later, the building groaned, then fell, tumbling to the side as it did so.

"The fuck is your fucking problem you lunatic!" Marquis yelled out, flying straight at her in an incredibly uncharacteristic frothing rage, having jumped out of a window just in time. "Do you have any idea how many people you just fucking murdered!"

"I'm a hero!" Kayden shouted, directing her beam at the strafing man. He was fast, but her beam was faster, and while he managed to outfly her beam for a while, after flying three circles around her, her beam finally caught up with him, shearing straight through his bone wings, his body, and everything behind him.

There was only dust and noise. Loud crashes all around her as the city collapsed. She'd done it, she'd taken down the evil villain and proven herself a hero once more. She was a good person, not a Nazi or a murderer, like Kaiser or Marquis.

Taking a few moments to confirm her kill, observing the mangled remains of what had once been a birdcage inmate, Purity flew off further into the city, looking for her boyfriend. He'd be proud of her.


	36. Chapter 36

**Hunter of Light: The End**

Dust whirled through the air, kicked up by the rotors of the abomination flying in front of her. Annoying, but her costume included a dust-mask, which made it tolerable.

"Y'know, I always hated it in games when their idea of a miniboss was just a dude in a helicopter," Freyja said, hovering on her boulder. "Seems lazy, y'know?"

"What, you'd prefer a normal dude that just took ten times the bullets and didn't die to three rockets to his face?" a confused Trainwreck asked, lights dancing on his missiles. They were trying to lock on, but her stones didn't exactly have a heat signature, limiting the man to manual aim.

"I mean, it'd be much more realistic, wouldn't it? Plus, I work for Lustrum now, I'm contractually obliged to love killing dudes!" she replied.

"Well, then you're shit out of luck. I'm a helicopter, not a dude," Trainwreck yelled back.

Well, they'd both been yelling. Helicopters were really hecking loud, and steam-powered helicopters like Trainwreck had turned himself into were even worse.

"Can't you be both? Like how in the Cars universe, there's boy cars and girl cars? I mean, helicopter isn't really the same thing as gender, right?"

"Those movies were totally racist! The Helicopter should've gotten his own movie, not those stupid airplanes!"

"That's what you're taking away from this? Really?"

"Look, I just want my rights, okay? My struggle is just as relevant as everyone else's!" Trainwreck yelled, firing a missile as he did so.

Freyja leaped from rock to rock as the missile impacted, locking her previous ride in time. Bakuda's work, she was sure.

"Look, I have no fucking clue how you feel, waking up without memories and shit in a weird body. But… I really don't think that means it's exactly the same as other people's struggles?" she replied, placing a small van between her and her enemy.

"So what? I should just sit back while everyone else gets to be what they want to be?" he asked, flying around, trying to get an angle of attack.

"Well, I dunno? It's just… Being a helicopter is obviously different from being like trans or something, right? I mean, I think I have to hate both, since I'm working for Lustrum and everything now and all that shit gets really confusing," Rune said. "I mean, I think there's something with brain chemistry and stuff?"

"So what, just because I wasn't born with the brain of a helicopter, I can't become one? That's nonsense! It just means my brain is the first brain for sentient helicopters!"

"That doesn't make any sense! It's obviously different!" Rune yelled, throwing her van at the guy.

"I just want to be who I want to be! What's wrong with that!" he shouted back, evading the van.

"Nothing? Everything? I don't know? It's just… You don't even think you're a different person, you think you're a thing, an unperson! You can't just go and claim that that's the same thing! Hell, you doing that is probably setting back their struggle!"  
"Which is what you want, right?" he asked, firing another missile. Lacking a quick way out, she hesitated, and as the projectile impacted, the floor beneath her turned into loose gravel, giving her a fraction of a second to jump off.

Was that what she wanted? She thought as the ground quickly approached. She'd dropped away from her uncle's racist ideology as hard as she was dropping to the ground right now, without really thinking about where she'd be landing. And while rampaging through the city with Lustrum had not only been fun, but also given her a massive amount of Twitter followers, she found herself not really caring about the finer points of the ideology.

Even before, she'd always just wanted a place to belong, away from her parents. Say the right words and wear the right clothes, and large swathes of people suddenly became your friends.

Until they beat you up and threw you into solitary of course, but those were mere details…

Then again, Lustrum had been sent to the birdcage before… Following her specific brand of femi-nazi-ism was… perhaps not the most tactical idea.

But what else? She couldn't go back to the Empire either, Purity had destroyed it wholesale… pondering, the boulder she'd sent after herself finally reached her, allowing her to hold onto it and decelerate while looking for Trainwreck in the sky. He was chasing after her, and from the look of it, he'd forgotten about the van still flying around above them.

"You ready to surrender to me now!?" Trainwreck yelled out, two of his missiles lighting up.

"To you? Never!" she replied.

"Than die!" Trainwreck yelled, firing his last two explosives while she finally found her purpose. Sending her boulder crashing towards the large library building below, she jumped off, grabbing hold of the cloth on a flagpole in front of it, the cloth ripping in her hands as it took her speed while her van crashed into Trainwreck from above.

"It's 'THEN' you fucking idiot!" she yelled as the helicopter crashed into the pavement, mangled rotors no longer sustaining its flight. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something moving away from the wreckage through the dust, steam and fire, but she didn't care enough to chase. Instead, she walked into the damaged, and mostly empty, library building. Wading through water and passing between flames (Her boulder had broken a water main, and one of the missiles had proven incendiary), she eventually found the title she needed.

 _Strunk And White, The Elements of Style._

XXX

"Taylor, are you all right?" Crystal asked, running into the old room. Her girlfriend, she loved that she could say that now, stood victorious against the vilest of fiends, a low-level thug for hire called Grue.

"Fine and dandy!" the girl replied, trying to take off a pair of boxing gloves as Crystal enveloped her in a hug, allowing the girl to squeak out only a single sentence: "Where's everyone else?"

"Dunno. Some sort of bomb went off," Crystal said, reaching for her phone. There was a selfie from her cousins, standing victorious over Bakuda. "But I think they're alright."

"Good, then we can go on and find my dad, and my mom I guess, and maybe Amy's father."

"You have any idea where they are?"

"Not really. I'd try to call him but… my dad doesn't have a mobile phone, not since my mom died in that car crash. She'd been texting.

"Oh honey," Crystal said, hiding Taylor's face against her, then coming to a realization. "You're a real idiot sometimes, you know that right?"

"What?" she asked.

"No phone? Because your mom died in an accident?"

XXX

"Hey Kurt, it's me, Taylor."

"Heya kiddo! How's it going?" the man replied, panicked noise in the background. "We're running away from the complete and utter destruction of the towers, you?"

"Underground boxing ring, it's complicated. Hey, do you happen to have dad's phone number? I lost it."

"Sure thing sweetie, it would be weird for him not to have one, since he has an important role in the organization and it's useful if he's available at all times! I'll text it to you, okay?"

"Kay!" Taylor replied, hanging up since there was no need for further pleasantries, just like in the movies. "Say, Crystal, you think one of your friends at the PRT could help us track his number?"

XXX

"Dad, mom, how you doing?" Taylor asked, her hands glowing with energy as her girlfriend held her in a bridal carry. A bit embarrassing, a bit amazing, a lot useful in this context.

The two of them turned towards the girls, Annette quickly covering up with a blanket while Danny was forced to use his hands.

"Little Owl, this is not what it looks like," her mother said.

"What, so you're saying you didn't fake your own death, go to the birdcage, break out of the birdcage, recruit a nazi, start a gang war with a different birdcage escapee and lure dad out of the safehouse?"

"Oh that? Yes, that I did. I mean this. I'm uhmmmm…. I was just, you know, beating him in a wrestling match! Taking this man down like we should all take down the patriarchy!"

"Mom!"

"What is it kiddo?"

"I know what sex is!"

"Really?" Annette said, her eyes suddenly focusing on Crystal. "What have you been doing with my-"

"I'm fifteen! Almost sixteen! I actually aged while you were off being in prison!"

"Well, while I approve of you choosing a girl, I-"

"Shut up! Just don't say it! Don't even imply me liking Crystal has anything to do with that. And you!" she pointed at her father, spit flying out of her mouth. "Not only do you move from a fucking birdcage convict to a crazed Nazi that just blew up half the fucking city, you were so goddamn stupid enough that you then CHEAT on that woman? Are you for fucking real?"

XXX

Sophia looked out over the running hordes of people, holding her crossbow and trying to look intimidating and authoritative.

"Y'know, I think we're missing something important," Dennis said, playing with his phone.

"Really? Don't be fucking stupid. It's us, Armsmaster is over there on the other guard point with Dragon and Miss Militia, and Vista is on the console. If there's anything important going on, don't you think us fan-favorite capes would be involved?"

"I guess," Sophia said, wondering what everyone else was up to. Maybe tonight, she could finally go out and take down Grue, she'd been looking forward to being the first person to get the guy arrested.

XXX

"Cheating? I'd never…" Danny stammered, looking in fear at his now deadly daughter.

"Really? Then what the hell does this look li-" Taylor's tirade was interrupted as the door to the motel room's bathroom opened, a naked lady with shining (literally) hair and eyes stepping out.

"Oh, hi there Huntress. I'm sorry, but I think you two are a bit too young to-"

"I quit!" Taylor yelled, randomly shooting bolts of destructive light out of her fists. "I quit, I quit, I quit! Crystal, take us away!"

Crystal obliged, flying away from the crappy motel as fast as she could, holding the emotionally devastated girl close to her.

Soaring through the sky, a sea of lights below her as the evening set, she nearly crashed into a flying boulder carrying Rune, or whatever she went by these days. The girl was sitting there, closely studying a book as Crystal ignored her, aiming for a home she hoped would still be standing.

Taylor was a crying bundle of shadows, the twisted degeneracy of her father too much to bear. Crystal didn't mind, assuaging someone's worries was what a girlfriend did, and all the crazyness of the last few days had only strengthened their burgeoning relationship. They'd work something out, make their relationship work, live to love another day.

XXX  
 _"Operation Explore Powers, day One Hundred and Twelve_  
 _"It has been almost four months since I last dropped a world, and it has become exceedingly clear that my abilities were not meant to be used over such long timescales. Even without my little Sarah to help me, I am quite sure which of the two worlds I created is the fake. Starting slowly, events in one of the timelines have escalated to a level that is not only disastrous, but also quite silly. It is as if, lacking grounding in reality, the agent responsible for my abilities simply made shit up in an exceedingly intoxicated state of mind._  
 _"As such, I shall be dropping this instance, and retaining the other, and while I have not found the root of the divergences, several factors have become clear. The individual D. Hebert's relationships are of exceeding importance. I can only hope that the instance of reality in which he is a supervillain dating Protectorate hero Dauntless does not end as disastrously as the one in which he dated Purity._  
 _"Coil, signing off."_

 **The End**


End file.
